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EVERYDAY   ENGLISH. 


A   SEQUEL  TO 


"WORDS  AND  THEIK  USES." 


RICHARD   GRANT   WHITE. 


Ratio  imperatrix  supra  grammaticam. 


BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   AND  COMPANY. 

Cbe  EtUerBitBe  Jprrss,  Camfartlig;c. 

1895. 


^VV 


Copyright,  1880, 
RICHARD  GRANT  WHITE. 

All  righis  reaerved. 


The  River. nde  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A, 
Printed  bi'  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Company. 


pt 


\ioO 


To 


FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD,  M.A.,  Ph.D., 

BOTLSTON  PROFESSOR  OP  BHETOBIO  AMD  ORATOBT, 
HAKTARD  CNIVERSITr. 


Mt  dear  Child:  — 

Some  parts  of  this  book  I  hope  and  believe  you  will  approve;  soma 
others  I  fear  you  will  disapprove.  It  is  not  for  the  former  reason,  how- 
ever, that  I  give  my  desultory  work  the  honor  of  having  the  name  of  a 
scholar  of  your  grade  upon  this  page,  but  that  I  may  have  the  pleasure  of 
thus  bearing  publicly  my  testimony  to  the  value  of  your  linguistic  labors, 
tnd  the  yet  greater  pleasure  of  offering  you  this  token  of  the  friendship  ol 

Tours  always, 

B.  G.  W. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


Some  of  the  following  chapters  appeared  serially 
in  the  New  York  "  Times  "  in  the  years  1877-78, 
under  the  title  of  this  book.  Others  were  published 
from  time  to  time  in  the  "  Galaxy  "  magazine  in  the 
years  1873-76.  Little  change  has  been  made  in 
them  except  by  omission  and  condensation.  Of  the 
author's  more  recent  writing  upon  the  same  subject 
only  a  small  part  has  been  embodied  in  this  volume. 


PREFACE. 


Nine  years  have  passed  since  the  publication  of  the 
book  to  which  this  is  a  sequel.  Were  I  much  concerned 
about  the  fate  of  that  book,  or  about  the  linguistic  reputa- 
tion of  its  writer,  I  should  not  be  without  occasion  of  self- 
congratulation  in  respect  to  either.  The  views  of  the 
English  language  which  were  set  forth  in  "  Words  and 
their  Uses  "  need  now  no  defense ;  nor  shall  they  now  have 
any  defense  at  the  hands  of  its  author,  except  that  which 
they  may  incidentally,  almost  inevitably,  receive  in  the 
course  of  an  examination  in  this  book  of  subjects  kindred 
to  those  of  its  predecessor.  That  usage,  even  the  usage  of 
the  best  writers,  is  not  the  final  law  of  language ;  that  in 
the  scientific  sense  of  the  word  it  is  not  a  law  at  all ;  and 
that  English  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  without  formal 
grammar,  are  truths  now  perceived  by  so  many  intelligent, 
well-informed,  and  thinking  men,  that  he  who  proclaimed 
them  may  safely  leave  them  to  work  out  their  proper  ends 
without  the  aid  of  further  advocacy.  The  views  taken  in 
the  book  in  question  of  the  use  of  particular  words,  and  of 
their  perversion  from  their  proper  sense,  even  by  writers  of 
repute,  seem  also  to  need  no  apology  or  modification ;  at 
least  I  have  none  to  offer.  They  may  remain  as  they  were 
written. 

Controversy  is  so  extremely  disagreeable  to  me  that  I 
have  always  avoided  it,  if  I  could  do  so  without  seeming  to 
admit  that  I  had  committed  the  offense  —  it  might  be  said 
the  literary  crime  —  of  having  undertaken  to  teach  that 
which  I  myself  had  not  studied ;  of  having  pretended  tc 
knowledge  that  I  had  not  acquired.     On  a  very  few  occa^ 


S  PREFACE. 

sious  —  three  only,  I  believe  —  I  have  been  led  to  enter 
upon  my  own  defense ;  but  in  each  of  these  I  was  person- 
ally assailed ;  my  assailant  not  having  been  content  to  at- 
tack my  doctrine  and  to  refute  my  argument  to  the  best  of 
his  ability,  but  having  sought  to  gibbet  me  as  a  pretender, 
and  to  establish  his  claims  to  the  hangman's  office  by  an 
imposing  exhibition  of  his  own  enormous  "  scholarship.' 
Such  assaults  as  these  only  I  have  repelled.  Otherwise  1 
am  content  to  leave  what  I  write  to  stand  or  fall  by  its  own 
strength.  Moreover,  I  have  little  respect  for  controversy, 
or  even  for  discussion,  in  the  establishment  of  truth  or  the 
extinction  of  error.  The  disputants,  after  a  fencing  match 
in  which  the  buttons  are  apt  to  come  off  their  foils,  even  if 
rankling  poison  does  not  infect  their  blades,  remain  each  of 
them  "  of  his  own  opinion  still,"  having  merely  fought  for 
the  amusement  of  the  lookers-on.  Men  in  general  are  not 
convinced  by  arguments,  pro  and  con,  by  retorts,  by  pleas 
i»nd  replications,  rejoinders,  rebutters,  and  surrebutters.  The 
world  at  large  learns  through  direct  dogmatic  teaching  by 
(hose  who  have  strong  convictions.  The  doctrines  of  such 
men,  suiting  more  or  less  the  temper  of  their  times,  are 
tssted  by  the  general  sense,  and  are  gradually  absorbed  or 
rejected  in  the  progress  of  years.  New  doctrine  must  al- 
ways be  bread  cast  upon  the  waters.^ 

And  there  is  yet  another  reason  not  without  weight  for 
the  discontinuance,  if  not  for  the  avoiding,  of  controversy. 
When  a  man  or  an  army  is  beaten  there  is  an  end  of  that 
man  or  that  army,  at  least  for  the  time  being ;  but  fn  arga- 
ment,  in  discussion,  there  has  yet  been  discovered  no  way 
of  preventing  the  renewed  defense  of  demonstrated  error  or 
i,he  reassertion  of  exploded  fallacy. 

It  was  not  at  all  surprising  to  me  that  my  declaration  of 
the  very  unimportant  nature  of  the  remains  of  formal  gram- 

^  This  paragraph  is  from  an  article  in  the  New  York  Times  which 
was  published  some  months  before  the  appearance  of  Professor  Max 
Vliiller's  article  on  Spelling  in  the  Fortniyhtlij  Review. 


PREFACE.  XI 

mar  in  the  English  language,  and  of  the  utter  futility  of 
grammar  study  as  a  means  of  learning  to  speak  English 
well,  was  received  with  surprise  and  provoked  ojiposition. 
When,  some  ten  years  ago,  I  declared  English  to  be,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  a  grammarless  tongue,  on  the  one 
hand  were  some  who  hailed  the  doctrine  as  true  and  nc- 
cepted  it;  but  on  the  other  there  were  heard  the  cries  of 
defiance  and  the  sneers  of  derision.  The  result  thus  far  is 
that  the  more  the  question  has  been  discussed,  the  wider  has 
been  the  spread  of  the  belief  among  thinking  men  that  Eng- 
lish has  (with  some  trilling  exceptions)  no  grammatical  con- 
struction, —  that  is,  construction  according  to  syntactical 
laws,  —  and  that  since  then  English  grammars,  so  called, 
have  been  written  and  published  in  which  an  attempt  has 
been  made  to  sweep  out  a  great  deal  of  the  old  scholas- 
tic rubbish  with  which  children  were  crammed  and  choked 
in  the  mistaken  effort  to  teach  them  how  to  speak  their 
mother  tongue.  Grammars  have  been  diminishing  in  vol- 
ume, the  diminution  being  due  to  the  reduction  in  quantitv 
of  dusty  nonsense,  —  of  rules  which  were  shackles  instead 
of  guides,  and  of  examples  which  burdened  the  memory, 
but  which  did  not  teach  the  use  of  words.  But  much  re- 
mains to  be  done.  People  have  y.et  fully  to  grasp  the  fact 
that  there  really  is  no  such  thing  as  grammar  m  the  Eng- 
lish language;  that  all  systems  of  teaching  English-speak- 
ing children  their  mother  tongue  by  rules  and  exceptions, 
and  notes  and  observations,  and  cautions  and  corollaries,  are 
useless,  and  not  only  so,  but  worse,  because  such  a  system 
naturally  leads  to  the  injurious  misapprehension  that  writ- 
ing or  speaking  grammatically  is  something  else  than  writ- 
ing or  speaking  naturally,  —  something  else  than  saying  in 
olain  language  just  what  you  mean.  The  new  modified  and 
curtailed  grammars  are  the  fruits  of  an  absurd  notion  that 
to  learn  to  speak  and  write  his  own  language  a  man  must 
be  taught  some  "  grammar  "  in  one  shape  or  another.  This 
tfl  but  a  natural  attempt  to  break  a  fall.     The  struggle  wiU 


Xll  PREFACE. 

go  on  until  at  last  the  grammarians  and  the  grammar-loving 
pedagogues,  utterly  overthrown,  will  pass  peaceably  away, 
and  be  carried  out  to  sepulture  with  a  funeral  service  from 
Lindley  Murray  read  over  their  venerable  remains. 

English  grammar  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  dead. 
The  little  life  it  had  was  so  purely  fictitious  that  one  smart 
assault  extinguished  it  forever.  The  time  is  coming,  and  it 
will  be  here  erelong,  when  there  will  be  no  more  thought 
of  teaching  an  English-speaking  boy  to  use  his  mother 
tongue  by  grammar  rules  than  of  teaching  him  astrology.  I 
am  often  asked  why  I  do  not  write  an  English  grammar  as 
a  text-book  according  to  my  own  principles.  How  can  I 
do  so,  when  the  very  first  of  my  principles,  if  I  have  any, 
in  regard  to  English,  is  that  it  has  no  appreciable  grammar ; 
that  all  English  grammar  books,  even  the  best  of  them, 
should  be  burned ;  and  that  the  study  of  language,  as  one 
that  requires  trained  faculties,  a  cultivated  judgment,  and 
no  little  knowledge  of  literature,  should  be  postponed  until 
a  late  period  of  the  time  passed  by  young  people  in  study, 
—  a  notion  horrible  to  many  teachers  of  schools,  and  ut- 
terly abominable  to  all  publishers  of  school-books. 

The  high  priests,  and  the  low  priests,  of  the  mysteries  of 
English  grammar  have  not  ceased  to  deal  with  me  acri- 
mouiously.  Let  their  railing  pass  by  me  as  the  idle  wind : 
irritating  as  it  is,  I  would  much  rather  face  it  than  a  sharp 
northwester.  I  wish,  however,  to  put  one  of  their  misrep- 
resentations in  its  proper  light.  They  try  to  bring  upon 
me  the  odium  that  pertains  to  arrogance.  In  the  words  of 
one  of  them,  I  "  assume  to  Ve  a  critical  authority  upon  the 
English  language,"  and  also  "  an  adept  in  the  use  "  of  it. 
These  assertions  are  absolutely  untrue  in  letter  and  in 
B2)irit.  I  assume  no  such  authority,  nor  have  I  ever  as- 
sumed it,  directly  or  indirectly.  I  profess  no  such  skill ; 
nor  have  I  ever  written  or  said  a  word  implying  such  pro- 
fession. I  do  not  profess  —  I  may  say  that  I  hardly  try — 
to  write  good  English ;  I  on'y  profess  to  know,  what  hun* 


PREFACE,  XIU 

dreds  of  my  readers  know  as  well  as  I  do,  wLbl  good 
English  is  written.  Did  I  not  believe  that  I  know  this,  it 
would  indeed  have  been  presuming  in  me  to  write  what  I 
have  written  upon  this  subject.  Yet  so  absolutely  untrue 
is  this  accusation,  that  I  am  not  in  the  position  even  of  hav- 
ing put  myself  forward  as  a  critical  writer  upon  language, 
or  upon  art,  or  any  other  subject  except  Shakespeare. 
"  Words  and  their  Uses "  is  not  a  gathering  of  volunteer 
essays.  The  papers  of  which  it  is  made  up  are  chiefly  the 
fruit  of  inquiries  addressed  to  me  by  strangers ;  and  they 
were  published,  as  is  the  case  with  all  else  that  I  have  writ- 
ten, because  people  paid  me  for  the  right  to  publish  them. 
I  would  much  rather  have  spent  my  time  and  such  strength 
as  I  have  upon  some  other  subject. 

Yet  I  have  one  other  motive  than  that  which  I  have 
mentioned ;  for  I  do  verily  believe  that  whoever  writes  as 
these  grammarians  teach  men  to  write  will  be  sure  never 
to  produce  a  sentence  worth  reading.  A  man  who  takes 
thought  about  his  "  grammar,"  and  is  in  an  anxious  frame 
of  mind  as  to  whether  his  sentences  will  parse,  may  as  well 
lay  down  his  pen  if  he  writes  for  other  readers  than  him- 
self. A  man  whose  writing,  even  for  its  style,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  its  matter,  is  worth  the  paper  on  which  it  is  printed, 
has  other  things  upon  his  mind  than  the  construction  of  his 
sentences  according  to  the  "  rules  of  grammar ; "  and  to 
show  this  to  my  readers  is  one  of  the  objects  of  this  book 
and  of  its  predecessor.  He  who  can  write  what  is  worth 
the  reading  may  make  his  own  grammar ;  and  he  surely  will 
do  so,  as  all  such  men,  great  writers  or  small,  have  done 
before  him.  Many  of  them,  indeed  all  of  them,  have  fallen 
into  formal  errors,  —  errors  which  offer  very  pretty  occa- 
sions for  the  gratification  of  the  critical  malice  of  such 
censors  as  those  that  I  am  noticing.  Addison,  who  criti- 
tised  others,  and  whose  own  style  has  long  been  regarded 
«s  a  model,  erred  often  thus ;  and  even  Goldsmith,  whose 
•tyle  is  more  correct,  and,  in  my  judgment,  more  pleasing 


SIV  PREFACE. 

committed  sins  against  "  grammar  "  of  which  I  am  sure  that 
this  sort  of  critics  could  not  be  guilty ;  as  sure  as  I  am  that 
their  writing  would  be  quite  free  from  some  other  peculiar- 
ities which  have  been  remarked  in  those  authors.  I  com- 
mend them  to  their  attention ;  they  may  parse  them  and 
criticise  them  to  their  hearts'  content,  and  find  congenial 
occupation  in  so  doing.^ 

It  is  a  reproach  upon  grammatical  studies  that  they  tend 
to  produce  a  swarm  of  semi-literary  censors  who  dart  singly 
or  in  flocks  upon  those  who  enter  their  field,  singing  and 
stinging  with  a  delight  and  a  venom  at  least  as  great  as 
that  of  their  insect  prototypes.  Like  them,  they  are  really 
of  almost  inexpressible  insignificance ;  but  like  them  they 
manage  to  make  themselves  heard,  and  felt,  and  hated. 
Those,  indeed,  we  can  keep  oflf  by  bars  and  nets,  or  drive 
away  by  odors  which  are  only  less  noisome  than  their  buzz 
and  their  bite ;  but  against  these  there  is  no  bar.  Their 
impudence  surmounts  and  their  impertinence  penetrates  all 
defenses.  Their  glee  over  the  annoyance  which  they  hope 
to  inflict  is,  like  that  of  their  model,  more  irritating  than 
their  little  sting ;  although  against  that  there  is  no  protec- 
tion but  a  moral  indiflference  which  is  as  rare  as  a  skin  thick 
as  the  hide  of  a  rhinoceros. 

These  carpers,  even  in  their  best  moods,  think,  and  feel, 
and  write  with  the  motive  embodied  in  the  saying,  "  Phy- 
Bician,  heal  thyself,"  than  which  a  more  foolish  requisition 

1  Picking  flaws  is  poor  business,  but  Addison,  for  example,  could 
write,  and  not  only  write  but  leave  uncorrected,  such  sentences  as  this 
in  his  Remarks  on  Several  Parts  of  Italy:  — 

"  The  marble  of  the  arch  looks  very  white  and  fresh,  as  being  ex- 
posed to  the  winds  and  salt-sea-vapors,  that  by  continually  fretting 
it  preserves  itself  from  that  mouldy  color,  which  others  of  the  same 
materials  have  contracted."     (Fifth  edition,  1736.) 

This  mi^ht  have  l)een  written  by  Mrs.  Gamp.  Such  confusion 
tiars  the  charm  of  Addison's  writings  not  so  rarely  as  some  of  those 
who  would  have  us  believe  that  they  give  their  days  and  nights  to 
Ihe  study  of  them  would  seem  to  think. 


PREFACE.  XV 

ivas  never  uttered.  That  a  physician  cannot  heal  hinaseli 
IS  DO  ground  for  belief  that  his  advice  may  not  profit 
others ;  nor  is  even  the  fact  that  he  is  ailing  evidence  that 
he  is  ignorant  of  his  condition  or  unable  to  better  it.  He 
may  be,  of  choice  or  necessity,  too  much  occupied  with 
others'  troubles  to  look  after  his  own.  The  occasion  when 
this  saying  was  first  uttered  is  an  exponent  of  its  spirit, 
which  was  more  fully  expressed  when  the  Person  to  whom 
it  was  addressed  was  told  by  those  who  passed  Him  "  wag- 
ging their  heads,"  as  these  others  wag  theirs,  that  if  He 
was  what  He  was  accused  of  professing  to  be,  He  might 
save  Himself.  I  do  not  set  myself  up  as  an  example  to  be 
followed ;  and  any  endeavor  to  discredit  what  I  teach  by 
criticism  of  my  own  writing  is  entirely  from  the  purpose. 
Consequently,  writers  of  the  class  to  which  I  have  referred 
will  not  find  it  profitable  to  waste  time,  pens,  ink,  and  pa- 
per upon  me.  I  have  noticed  them  vicariously  now  once 
for  all,  and  have  paid  in  advance  all  their  claims  upon  me, 
saying  grace,  Franklin-wise,  "  over  the  whole  pork-barrel." 
I  do  not  expect  to  be  free  of  them  because  I  have  not  in 
these  pages  or  elsewhere  made  any  personal  remarks  in 
regard  to  any  one  of  them.  As  well  might  a  man  walk 
through  Donnybrook  Fair  with  a  shillelagh  in  his  hand  and 
expect  not  to  be  assaulted  because  he  attacked  no  one,  as 
to  write  on  the  language  of  his  day  and  escape  personal 
attack  from  these  pene-literators.  There  is  but  one  way 
of  placating  them  in  my  case,  and  that  is  that  publishers 
should  engage  them  instead  of  me  to  write  upon  this  sub- 
ject. And  on  a  certain  trifling  condition  I  am  more  than 
willing  that  they,  or  any  one  of  them,  should  take  my  place. 
Like  the  boy  on  the  edge  of  the  battle  in  "  Henry  V.,''' 
"  I  would  give  all  my  fame  for  a  pot  of  ale  and  safety." 
Let  the  publishers  pay  me  the  money,  and  let  them  write 
the  books,  and  I  will  gladly  resign  my  ofiice  for  some  other 
more  to  my  liking. 

For  the  method  of  writing  which  most  of  this  class  orf 


KVl  PREFACE. 

critics  commend  1  have  no  respect.  They  may  choose  to 
write  by  rule,  and  it  may  answer  their  purpose  to  do  so ; 
but  I  do  not  so  choose,  nor  would  it  answer  my  purpose. 
My  mother  tongue  is  mine  by  inheritance  and  by  occupa- 
tion, as  it  is  also  that  of  most  of  my  readers,  and  I  use  it, 
have  used  it,  and  shall  use  it  as  if  it  belonged  to  me,  and 
not  as  if  I  belonged  to  it,  caring  only  to  say  what  I  mean 
in  such  a  way  as  to  impress  it  upon  my  readers,  and  with 
utter  indifference  to  the  rules  of  any  grammarian  or  the 
dictums  of  any  lexicographer.  I  am  not  like  Sir  Thomas 
Overbury's  pedant,  "who  dares  not  thinke  a  thought  that 
the  nominative  case  governs  not  the  verbe."  To  such  a  po- 
Bition  of  independence  I  hope  to  bring  others. 

So  much  in  reference  to  what  has  been  said  about 
"  "Words  and  their  Uses  "  and  its  author  by  those  who  have 
put  themselves  forward  as  representatives  of  the  grammari- 
ans and  the  precedent-hunters.  Of  late  some  of  them,  pos- 
sibly in  ignorance  of  what  was  written  on  both  sides  of  this 
question  years  ago,  have  sounded  the  trumpet-call  to  contro- 
versy. But  to  what  good  this  fighting  over  of  old  battles  ? 
What  they  talk  about  happened  consule  Planco. 

The  republication  in  England  —  I  do  not  know  in  what 
quarter  —  of  some  of  these  chapters  in  their  original  form 
brought  me  letters  from  unknown  correspondents  tliere,  one 
of  whom  says  something  (which  he  had  before  said  publicly 
in  England),  the  truth,  and  indeed  the  importance,  of  which 
I  would  be  the  last  person  to  undervalue.  This  is,  that  my 
view  of  English  grammar  had  occurred  to  him  and  to  others. 
Indeed,  I  believe  it  to  be  true,  and  I  own  with  pleasure,  that 
no  small  part  of  any  worth  or  importance  which  the  theory 
of  English  speech  set  forth  by  me  in  the  following  pages, 
and  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses  "  some  years  ago,  may  have, 
is  Jargely  due  to  the  fact  that  it  gives  form  and  utterance 
to  doubts  and  queries  which  have  of  late  years  sprung  up 
n  the  minds  of  many  intelligent  and  thoughtful  persons, 
((\r  whom  I  have  only  had  the  good  fortune  to  speak,  going 


PREFACE.  XVU 

before  them,  protesting  and   prophesying  iu  the  name  of 
common-sense. 

The  title  of  this  book,  like  that  of  its  predecessor,  tells 
plainly  enough  the  purpose  with  which  the  irticles  of  which 
it  is  composed  were  written.  That  purpose  was  to  lead  in- 
telligent and  fairly  well  educated  persons,  who  had  made  no 
special  study  of  language,  and  who  were  perhaps  acquainted 
with  no  language  but  their  own,  to  a  knowledge  of  good 
English,  to  help  them  to  protect  themselves  against  the  con- 
tamination of  debasing  influences  in  speech,  to  show  them, 
so  far  as  I  am  able  to  do  so,  the  virtue  and  the  beauty  of  a 
plain,  simple,  direct,  and  exact  use  of  their  mother  tongue, 
that  tongue  which  has  been  for  three  hundred  years  the 
noblest,  strongest,  richest,  most  largely  capable  language 
ever  uttered  by  man.  The  liberation  of  English  from  the 
restraints  of  formal  grammar,  the  wide  diffusion  among 
those  who  are  born  to  speak  it  of  such  a  degree  of  educa- 
tion as  makes  them  all,  or  nearly  all,  readers,  and  the  free- 
dom of  English  literature  from  that  authoritative  academic 
influence  which  is  almost  paramount  in  the  literature  of 
other  civilized  peoples,  combine  to  endow  it  on  the  one 
hand  with  a  union  of  strength,  flexibility,  and  inartificiality, 
in  which  it  is  peculiar,  and  to  expose  it  on  the  other  to 
perversion  and  defilement.  To  the  latter  liability,  the  mul- 
tiplicity of  newspapers,  and  the  fact  that  English  newspa- 
pers, and  even  English  books,  are  largely  written  by  per- 
sons who  are  altogether  without  literary  training,  greatly 
contribute.  If  Horace  could  justly  say,  "  "We  all,  erlucated 
and  uneducated,  write  poetry,"  what  might  be  said  now  of 
English-speaking  men,  and  of  English-speaking  women  1 
And  what  is  true  of  all  the  peoples  to  whom  English 
is  their  mother  tongue  is  peculiarly  and  dangerously  true 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States  at  the  present  day. 
Here  the  English  language  is  in  the  hands,  is  almost  at  the 
uercy,  of  a  public  which  unites,  in  a  degree  unprecedented, 
Intellectual  activity  and  independence  of  thought  with  infe> 
6 


JCViu  PREFACE. 

nor  education,  anJ,  what  is  almost  worse  m  regard  to  lan- 
guage than  no  education,  that  half-education  which  is  got 
from  text-books  and  text-book  teachers  in  public  schools. 
There  is  no  worse  English,  in  some  respects,  than  that 
which  is  spoken  and  written  by  those  who  learn  their  lan- 
guage in  "  American  "  public  schools.  Better  speak  the 
dialect  of  a  peasant  in  the  remotest  rural  shire  in  England, 
than  such  a  prim,  pretentious  language,  begotten  by  gram- 
mar upon  dictionary.  That  at  least  would  be  genuine  and 
natural ;  this  is  fictitious  and  artificial.  The  tendency  of 
our  public-school  teaching  in  language  is  toward  a  combina- 
tion of  vulgarity  and  pomposity.  And  this  tendency  is 
greatly  aggravated  by  the  addiction  of  our  public  to  the 
reading  of  newspapers.  Whatever  advantages  this  habit 
may  have  in  other  respects,  it  would  be  well,  so  far  as  our 
language  is  concerned,  if  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  in 
every  thousand  of  our  newspapers  could  be  suppressed  to- 
morrow. 

Errors,  harmful  errors,  in  the  use  of  language,  however, 
are  not  confined  to  the  uneducated  and  the  half-educated 
writers  who  address  and  mislead  the  public  in  such  quar- 
ters. Perversions  of  words  from  their  proper  uses  occur 
even  in  the  writings  of  those  who  have,  and  who  deserve, 
an  honored  place  in  literature.  Upon  the  latter,  as  well  as 
upon  the  former,  I  have  ventured  to  comment,  although  I 
am  conscious  that  I  myself  am  not  unlikely  to  be  among 
the  sinners  in  this  respect.  But  what  of  that  ?  Do  two 
wrongs  ever  make  one  right  ?  I  stand  as  ready  to  con- 
demn myself  as  to  censure  any  other.  It  may  be  said 
that  no  small  proportion  of  the  changes  which  are  con 
Btantly  taking  place  in  living  languages  are  due  to  these 
unconscious  perversions.  None  the  less,  however,  is  per- 
version to  be  deplored.  If  perversion  could  be  lessened, 
change  would  be  lessened,  and  language  would  continue  the 
longer  a  medium  of  expression  comprehensible  and  unmis- 
Uikable  by  all  those  by  whom  it  is  spoken.     What  a  bles* 


PREFACE.  XIX 

ing  would  it  have  been  to  mankind  if  an  unchanged  conti- 
nuity of  English  speech  had  made  the  greater  part  of  the 
labor  of  some  of  Shakespeare's  commentators  superfluous, 
Bnd  the  rest  of  it  impossible !  Such  a  continuity  has  be- 
gun to  prevail.  The  writers  of  the  Elizabethan  period 
needed  commentators  in  the  days  of  Queen  Anne,  a  hun- 
dred years  later  ;  but  the  Queen  Anne  writers  need  no  com- 
ment to  make  their  language  comprehensible  to  us,  who 
come  nearly  two  centuries  after  them.  It  was  in  the  hope 
of  effecting  something  toward  this  desirable  end  that  I  be- 
gan the  writings  which  have  resulted  in  "Words  and  their 
Uses,"  and  in  its  present  sequel.  I  have  been  led  by  the 
suggestions  of  others  and  by  the  tendencies  of  the  times 
into  the  discussion  of  other  topics,  connected  with  the  main 
purpose  which  I  had  in  view,  particularly  the  proposed 
change  in  English  spelling ;  but  this  I  hope  will  be  not  un- 
acceptable to  my  readers. 

To  those  who  have  followed  me  thus  far  I  need  hardly 
say  that  I  have  not  written  what,  by  any  stretch  of  the 
term,  may  rightly  be  called  a  grammar,  or  even  a  grammat- 
ical dissertation.  Nor  have  I  sought  or  desired  to  present 
my  readers  with  anything  like  a  text-book,  or  with  a  "  scien  • 
tific"  and  "exhaustive"  treatment  of  my  subject.  And  my 
discursive  discussions  are  absolutely  without  any  grammat- 
ical tendency.  They  will  not  help  any  one  to  parse  ;  and 
those,  therefore,  who  pine  to  parse  elegantly,  and  to  take 
prizes  in  the  parsing  matches  that  will  naturally  follow  the 
spelling  matches  that  have  fired  so  many  ardent  minds  with 
emulation  during  the  last  two  or  three  years,  need  not  look 
for  help  in  this  book. 

Nor  will  the  book  teach  any  one  to  spell.  In  the  first 
place,  I  have  not  the  highest  respect  for  spelling :  I  don'i 
take  it  to  heart.  Uniformity  of  practice  in  this  respect  is, 
indeed,  desirable ;  but  a  lack  of  stric*^  conformity  to  the  re- 
ceived orthography  of  the  time  is  not  a  matter  of  such  grave 
importauce  that  an  occasional  lapse  from  it  should  fill  any 


XX  PREFACE. 

one  with  shame,  or  be  made  the  occasion  of  ridicule.  Many 
persons  are  born  with  the  capacity  to  be  good  spellers,  and 
they  become  so  early  in  life  by  a  kind  of  intuition.  Others 
are  made  so,  but  more  rarely,  by  study  and  practice.  Some 
persons  never  learn  to  spell  with  unerring  correctness;  and 
these  are  far  from  being  the  dullest  or  the  least  instructed  of 
mankind.  I  have  known  so  many  persons,  feeble-minded 
and  ignorant,  who  were  irreproachable  in  this  respect,  that, 
having  met  with  others  who  were  able  to  utter  the  thoughts 
of  strong  and  richly-stored  minds  with  clearness  and  force, 
but  who  were  hardly  able  to  write  one  page  of  a  letter  with- 
out some  failure  to  conform  to  the  standard  of  that  Jug- 
gernaut of  the  timid  in  language,  "  the  dictionary,"  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  perfection  in  orthography  naturally 
belonged  rather  to  the  former  class  than  to  the  latter,  and 
that  they  who  took  to  spelling  were  they  whose  words  were 
likely  to  be  of  small  importance,  whether  they  spelled  well 
or  ill.  Of  course,  this  is  not  really  so.  There  are  fools 
and  ignoramuses  who  spell  badly,  and  wise  and  learned  men 
who  never  go  astray  in  this  respect ;  it  only  remains  that 
deviation  from  the  received  orthography  of  the  day,  if  not 
frequent  or  gross,  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  evidence  of  inca- 
pacity or  ignorance. 

And  English  orthography,  so  called,  is  so  unsystematic 
that  it  cannot  be  justly  regarded  as  an  ultimate  end  of  the 
highest  importance,  or  even,  either  as  process  or  as  result,  of 
very  great  intellectual  value.  Its  only  real  standard  is  us- 
age, its  only  safe  guide  is  etymology  ;  and  the  latter,  often 
disregarded,  it  is  now  sought  by  many  learned  philologists, 
and  particularly  by  many  phonologists,  to  set  aside  in  favor 
of  the  phonetic  method. 

The  proposed  change  seems  to  me  to  be  needless  and  full 
of  peril,  for  reasons  which  are  given  somewhat  fully  in  the 
course  of  the  second  division  of  this  book,  in  which  the  va- 
rious arguments  in  its  favor  which  have  been  presented 
within  the  last  few  years  by  distinguished  philologists  art 


PREFACE.  XXI 

eiamiued  freely  and  without  timidity,  but  I  hope  not  with- 
out due  deference.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  altogether 
too  much  ado  made  about  this  question  of  spelling,  which, 
as  signs  cannot  represent  sounds  but  can  only  suggest  them, 
must  after  all  be  a  mere  matter  of  convenience  and  of  fash- 
ion, in  which  changes  are  likely  to  take  place  for  the  mere 
sake  of  convenience  and  of  fashion.  For  example,  the  Tur- 
veydrops  of  orthography,  even  in  the  last  generation,  in- 
Bisted  upon  musick  as  the  spelling  of  the  word  which  all 
sane  people  now  write  music  ;  and  our  children  may  yet 
horrify  some  of  us  by  writing  hric  or  hrih,  instead  of  hrick^ 
in  conformity  to  a  new  fashion  of  their  time.  Whoever, 
therefore,  in  that  case  should  now  write  musick  or  hric 
would  be  merely  behind  or  before  the  fashion  of  the  day. 

The  committee  of  eminent  scholars  appointed  by  the 
American  Philological  Society  to  consider  (and  to  advocate) 
the  scheme  of  phonetic  spelling  presented  as  the  result  of 
their  labors  a  temperate  and  cautious  report,  the  point  of 
which  was  that  it  would  be  well  to  drop  gradually  some  of 
our  superfluous  terminal  and  double  letters.  Well  enough  : 
such  changes  are  sure  to  come  gradually  in  the  course  of 
time  hereafter  as  they  have  come  in  the  course  of  time  here- 
tofore. But  it  surely  was  not  necessary  that  Whitney,  and 
March,  and  Haldeman,  and  Trumbull,  and  Child  should  bow 
the  heavens  on  high  and  come  flying  all  abroad  to  tell  us 
that.  The  point  to  be  decided  is  whether,  for  example,  we 
shall  spell  Jizik  in  the  singular,  Jizix  in  the  plural,  and  fizi- 
shun  and  Jizikl  and  fiasisist  in  the  derivatives.  Against  that 
which  is  the  entering  wedge  of  a  scheme  that  will  rive  our 
written  language  into  such  splinters  I  have  protested  and 
endeavored  to  reason. 

In  the  first  division  of  this  book  an  examination  of  a 
thorough  and  systematic  discussion  of  the  so-called  sounds 
of  letters,  by  one  of  our  most  eminent  philologists,  from 
whom  I  venture  to  differ  on  some  points,  is  made  the  occa- 
rion  of  remarks  upon  the  pronunciation  of  English,  which  1 


XXll  PREFACE. 

hope  will  not  be  found  without  interest  and  value.  But  1 
do  not  undertake  to  teach  pronunciation.  For,  in  the  first 
place,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  pronounce  correctly  myself ; 
whether  I  did  so  or  not  never  having  been  a  matter  of  any 
thought  or  care  to  me  at  any  time  of  my  life,  that  I  can  re- 
member ;  any  more  than  whether  I  spelled  correctly,  as  to 
which  1  have  never  within  my  memory  given  myself  tho 
least  trouble.  Next,  I  doubt  very  much  the  ability  of  any 
one  to  teach  pronunciation  by  the  use  of  letters,  or  of  any 
printed  signs  whatever,  however  ingeniously  contrived. 
For,  whether  a  sound  is  indicated  by  a  combination  of  let- 
ters or  by  a  special  sign,  the  question  at  once  arises,  must 
arise,  What  is  the  sound  thus  indicated  ?  To  which  there 
is  no  answer,  can  be  no  answer,  except  by  the  voice  uttering 
the  sound ;  and  having  that,  the  sign  is  a  superfluity  at  best, 
at  worst  a  stumbling-block.  Pronunciation  cannot  be  taught 
otherwise  than  by  speech  ;  and  thus  it  is  always  learned. 
And  this  brings  me  to  the  third  reason  why  I  do  not  pro- 
pose to  teach  pronunciation  ;  which  is  that  it  is  not  to  be 
learned  by  study  and  from  teachers,  even  from  those  who 
teach  orally.  Pronunciation  is  acquired  slowly,during  youth  ; 
it  comes  insensibly  ;  it  strikes  root  deeply  ;  it  is  almost  in- 
eradicable. After  maturity  it  is  positively  so  in  most  cases. 
Those  in  which  it  is  not  are  so  few  that  they  may  be  left  out 
of  consideration.  Gross  faults  in  this  respect  maybe  corrected 
by  observation,  by  practice,  and  by  careful  watching  ;  but  let 
excitement  once  relax  the  consciousness  and  the  vigilance  of 
the  speaker,  and  early  habit,  which  in  language  seems  not 
second  nature  but  first  nature,  instantly  resumes  its  sway, 
and  the  precise  speaker  by  rule  of  a  minute  before  lapses 
into  provincialism  or  vulgarity.  There  is  no  guide  to  good 
pronunciation  but  daily  association  with  the  best  speakers  ; 
and  that,  to  be  effective,  should  begin  early  in  life. 

And  when  I  am  asked,  as  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  often  am 
asked,  what  dictionary  is  the  best  authority,  I  am  obliged 
to  say,  as  I  am  when  people  ask  me  how  to  spell  parallel 


PREFACE.  XXUl 

that  I  don't  know.  There  are  dictionaries  which  are  use- 
ful and  full  of  information,  but  in  living  language  there  is 
no  authority,  and  can  be  none.  Usage  —  the  usage  of  the 
most  cultivated  society  —  is  the  only  guide  ;  and  this  should 
be,  and  to  a  certain  extent  is,  moulded  by  reason  and  an- 
alogy. But  if  usage  chooses  to  set  reason  and  analogy 
aside  it  will  do  so.  Dictionaries  are  but  records  of  usage, 
as  it  has  been  observed  by  the  dictionary  makers  ;  and  the 
changes  of  language  —  that  is,  of  speech  —  are  so  constant 
and  so  subtle  that  a  dictionary  can  hardly  be  well  launched 
upon  the  public  before  it  begins  to  be  historical,  a  record  of 
obsolescent  sounds  and  meanings. 

The  most  important  part  of  our  every-day  English  has  not 
to  do  with  grammar,  or  with  spelling,  or  with  pronunciation. 
It  has  to  do  with  the  right  use  of  words  as  to  their  meaning 
and  their  logical  connection ;  and  this  may  be  learned  by 
study  and  by  care  at  almost  any  time  of  life.  In  illustra- 
tion of  the  need  of  such  study  and  care,  here  is  the  close  of 
a  sentence  which  I  found  in  an  official  letter  written  by  a 
man  who  I  know  was  very  sensitive  about  his  "  grammar," 
and  who  never  by  any  chance  misspelled  a  word  :  — 

"  .  .  .  .  that  this  is  paid  by  the  Chief  Clerk  of  the 

Revenue  from  funds  temporally  advanced  from  small  seiz- 
ures, and  that  the  sum  is  reimbursed  by  the  auctioneers." 

This  man  did  not  see  that  what  he  had  written  was  ab- 
K'^lute  nonsense.  To  him  there  was  no  difference  between 
temporally  and  temporarily ;  nor  could  he  see  that  funds 
could  not  be  advanced  from  seizures,  but  that  they  must  be 
advanced  from  the  products  of  seizures ;  and  he  was  in  like 
manner  incapable  of  seeing  that,  although  a  man  or  a  cor- 
porate body  may  be  reimbursed,  a  sum  is  returned  or  re- 
funded. A  man  is  reimbursed  by  the  return  of  money 
which  he  has  laid  out.  Correspondence,  every  sentence  of 
which  will  "  parse,"  and  every  word  of  which  is  spelled 
correctly,  is  infested  with  a  pestilent  use  of  language  like 
this.  It  is  this  department  of  language,  not  grammar  and 
orthography,  that  needs  atteut'on. 


XXIV  PREFACE. 

With  such  misuses  and  perversions  of  words  philology 
does  not  concern  itself,  although  they  furnish  it  in  the  end 
with  some  of  the  materials  upon  which  it  works.  Now  it 
is  in  the  very  field  which  philology  passes  by  that  I  have 
labored.  Into  any  higher  realm  of  linguistic  endeavor  this 
book  and  its  predecessor  venture  but  rarely,  and  then  only 
incidentally.  Their  chief  purpose  is  the  humbler  one  of 
striving  to  do  what  may  be  done  to  help  their  readers  to 
use  language  reasonably,  consistently,  normally,  and  with- 
out coarseness  on  one  side  or  affectation  of  elegance  on  the 
other ;  to  do  what  may  be  done  to  check  early  perversion 
of  language,  which  unchecked  may  pass  into  unrestrainable 
usage,  as  a  pebble  may  turn  aside  or  disperse  a  rill  which 
might  unchecked  become  a  brook  and  then  a  river.  That 
the  first  of  these  books  has  done  something  in  this  way, 
yet  far  too  little,  their  writer  has  the  satisfaction  of  know- 
ing. He  has  seen  that  he  has  effected  somewhat,  and  he 
hopes  to  effect  somewhat  more,  toward  diminishing  the 
number  of  monstrosities  in  language  which  future  philolo- 
gists will  have  to  record,  to  examine,  and  to  endeavor  to 
explain ;  and  with  that  somewhat,  be  it  little  or  much,  he 
will,  as  to  this  small  part  of  his  life's  work,  be  content. 

B.  G.  W. 

Nkw  York,  j^inil,  1880. 


OOI^TENTa 


PART  L  — SPEECH. 

■* 

CHAPTER  I. 

ENGLISH  FBONUNCIATION:  THB  VOWELS. 

Ihare  anil  sheer;  chair  and  cheer.  —  Words  pronounced,  not  letters. 

—  Professor  Whitney's  "Elements,"  etc. — The  aA  sound  of  A. — 
The  short  souifi  of  E.  —  Short  I.  —  Been. — Long  E.  —  I  as  E. — 
Words  of  French  origin. — EI 9 

CHAPTER  n. 

THE  VOWELS  (contitiued). 

Broad  A. — God  and  dog. — Short  0.  —  None,  whole,  home,  etc.— 
Short  U.  —  Monosyllables  in  oo.  —  Rood,  roof,  rule,  etc.  —  English 
U;  iotizing.  —  Wound. — Winding  a  horn.  —  R  destructive  of  the 
EngUshU.— The  New  England  U M 

CHAPTER  HI. 

consonants:  the  bones  op  speech. 

Nature  of  this  inquiry.  —  Only  consonants  are  articulated.  —  Articula- 
tion produced  only  by  consonants.  —  Few  words  without  consonants. 

—  Cries  of  animals  without  articulation.  —  Origin  of  language. — 
The  first  consonants,  M,  B,  P.  —  Consonants  fixed  in  pronuncia- 
tion.—  The  last  consonants,  L,  R. — Claim.  —  Surd  and  sonant; 
hard  and  soft.  — G,  hard  and  soft.  — D,  L,  and  R.  — Pronunciation 

of  kind,  guard,  and  girl.  —  TH. — The  z  sound 39 

CHAPTER  IV 

OKTHOEPY   AND   ORTHOGRAPHY.  —  SPELLtNG-BOOK    SPEECH. 

[^renouncing  dictionaries.  —  Prof.  F.  W.  Newman  on  English  as  spoken 
and  written.  —  Uncertainty  of  pronunciation.  —  What  sounds  shall 
be  phonetically  spelled.  — The  broad  A.  — Suppression  of  R;  of  H. 
Names  of  places.  —  Derby.  —  Old  pronunciation  of  ER;  of  IR. — 
Changes  in  spelling  suggested CI 


SXVl  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

TNACCENTED   VOWELS  AND  FINAL  CONSONANTS.  —  THE   IRISH 
PRONUNCIATION. 

PAOI 

W^hat  IS  the  true  pronunciation  of  English  ?  —  Cultivated  pronuncia- 
tion not  uniform  in  England.  —  Slovenly  utterance  of  unaccented 
vowels.  —  Unaccented  E  and  I.  —  The  Irish  pronunciation  that  of 
England  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth 70 

CHAPTER  VI. 

"AMERICAN"  SPEECH. 

Wallack's  Theatre.  —  The  English  heard  there.  —  Usage  tf  the  best 
English  society  absolute  as  to  pronunciation.  —  "  American  "  pecul- 
iarities. —  Utterance.  —  Nasality.  —  Constraint.  —  Over-emphasized 
speech  of  "American"  women.  —  Western  speech. — A  Western 
actress.  —  Throaty  speech.  —  Too  much  effort  in  speaking.  —  "  Mar- 
tin Chuzzlewit."  —  Dictionary  English .     .    8fi 

CHAPTER  VII. 

READING. 

Correct  spelling  not  necessary  to  easy  reading.  —  Learning  to  read.  — 
Reading  not  always  essential  to  education. —  Reading  aloud. — 
Beason  of  its  disuse.  — Effect  of  newspapers.  — Reading  aloud  well. 
^Mr.  Tennyson.  —  What  good  reading  is. — Naturalness.  —  Vari- 
ety of  inflection. —  An  example.  —  The  "  Psalm  of  Life  "  .    .    .    .108 

PART  II.  — WRITING. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

ENGLISH    SPELLING:     SOME   CONSIDERATION  OF   ITS  ALLEGED 
DIFFICULTY. 

•'Parrot  wheezers." — Notions  of  some  phonetic  spelling  reformers. 

—  Professor  March's  view.  —  Function  of  science  in  every-day 
speech. — The  will  in  language.  —  Spelling  not  singularly  diflBcult 
to  learn.  —  Spelling  has  nothing  to  do  with  speech.  — Unreasonable 
expectations  as  to  spelling.  — Spelling,  arithmetic,  and  geography. 

—  Bad  spelling  rare.  —  Misspelling  of  short  and  "  easy"  words  most 
common llf 

CHAPTER  IX. 

ENGLISH   spelling:     CONSIDERATION  OF  PROPOSED  PHONETIC 
REFORM. 

n>ree  fallacies. — Two  classes  of  advocates  of  phonetic  spelling 

Correspondence  of  sound  and  sign.  —  A  philologist's  confession  — 


CONTENTS.  XXVll 

Ellis's  law  of  the  individual. — Anarchy  in  spelling.  —  Saving  of 
time  lost  in  spelling.  —  Complaints  of  foreigners.  —  French  spelling. 
—  Letters  not  pronounced  in  detail.  —  Some  possible  reforms  in 
spelling — Etymology 134 

CHAPTER  X. 

SPELLING   REFORMERS  OF  THE  PAST. 

Ormin  and  his  "Ormulum."  —  Sir  John  Cheke.  —  English  spelling 
and  Latin  spelling.  — Sir  Thomas  Smith.  —  John  Hart.— Spelling  in 
A.  D.  1569  and  A.  d.  1879.  —  Dean  Wilkins  and  his  "  real  character  "  160 

CHAPTER  XL 

MODERN  ORTHOGRAPHY  AND  ITS  REFORMATION. 

Walker  and  his  "  principles."  —  The  sound  indicated  by  A.  —  Lan- 
guage independent;  writing  dependent  and  unessential.  —  Johnson, 
Young,  and  Chesterfield.  —  Changes  in  pronunciation  not  gradual. 

—  Original  function  of  letters.  —  Spelling  reform  unnecessary,  unde- 
sirable, and  impossible.  —  Difficulties  of  English  spelling  overrated. 

—  The  question  of  cost.  —  That  of  time.  —  The  combination  ough.  — 
Uncertaintj'  as  to  what  sounds  are  to  be  represented.  —  The  ques- 
tion of  practicability 166 

CHAPTER  Xn. 

MAX   MTJLLER  AND  PHONETIC    SPELLING. — PITMAN'S    ALPHABET. — 
ELLIS'S   PAL^OTYPE. 

ihe  question  merely  one  of  convenience.  —  The  Phonetic  Alphabet, 
and  the  changes  which  it  involves. — Effect  upon  English  litera- 
ture. —  Disagreement  among  phonologists  as  to  what  is  to  be  spelled 
phonetically  — The  question  of  etymology  of  secondary  importance. 

—  Edward  Coote's  "English  Schoolmaster."  —  Spelling  must  be 
arbitrary'.  —  Signs  only  suggest  sounds 183 

CHAP'^ER  XHL 

PHILOLOGISTS  AS   REFORMERS. — MR.    ELLIS'S   GLOSSIO   SPELLING. 

A.  revolution  in  spelling  not  to  be  feared.  —  No  consensus  among  the 
reformers.  —  Specialists  in  language  not  its  proper  reformers.  —  Mr. 
Ellis,  Dr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Lowe,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Sayce.  —  "An 
unphilological  habit  of  mind." — Power  of  government  over  spell- 
ing. —  Glossic  spelli.ng  and  nomic  spelling.  — Mr.  Ellis's  confession 
of  difficulty  and  perplexity 204 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  INVENTION  OF  PRINTING:    ITS  EFFECT  UPON  ENGLISH  SPELLING. 

Early  printing  and  contemporary  manuscript. — Variat'ins  in  early 
spelling  not  indicative  of  corresponding  variations  in  pronunciation 


XX.V1U  CONTENTS. 

PASI 

—  Uniformity  not  sacrificed  because  it  was  unknown. —  Gradual 
approach  to  uniformity 223 

CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  THEORY  OF  COMPROMISE   BETWEEN  SOUKD  AND   SIGN: 
RESTORATION  OF    SILENT   LETTERS. 

Examination  of  alleged  instances  of  compromise.  — England.  — Colo- 
nel, and  its  history. —  Lieutenant. — Major. — Silent  letters. — L, 
U,  and  P.  —  Some  words  in  which  vowels  and  consonants  were 
silent  in  the  seventeenth  century 236 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

JOHNSON'S  DICTIONARY  :    ITS   RELATION   TO   ESTABLISHED 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 

Johnson  neither  formed  nor  fixed  English  orthography.  —  Isaak  Wal- 
ton's spelling  in  1653.  —  Sir  Matthew  Hale's  spelling  in  1677.  — 
Modern  orthography  established  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cent- 
ury. —  Bailey's  dictionarj'.  —  Johnson,  like  Bailey,  merely  adopted 
the  spelling  of  antecedent  writers.  —  Changes  since  Johnson's  time. 

—  Recapitulation 850 

PART  III.  —  GRAMMAR. 

CHAPTER  XVn. 

"ENGLISH   GRAMMAR,"    SO  CALLED. — WHAT   GRAMMAR  IS. 

Mr.  Squeers's  parsing.  —  What  is  grammar?  — Various  definitions.— 
Grammar  as  it  is  here  considered.  — English  words,  with  few  excep- 
tions, have  but  one  form.  — Usage.  —  Usage  of  the  best  writers  not 
an  absolute  law  in  language.  —  Grammar  and  logic  in  language.  — 
Grammar  and  common-sense. — English  grammar  not  studied  by 
the  great  writers  of  English. — Grammar  schools  in  England  .    .    .  281 

CHAPTER  XVIH. 

HOW  IT   IS  THAT   ENGLISH   HAS   NO   GRAMMAR. 

Sir  Philip  Sidney.  —  His  prose ;  his  poetry.  —  His  view  of  the  English 
language.  —  "  It  wanteth  grammar."  —  English  once  had  grammar, 

—  "Survivals"  of  English  grammar.  —  The  sentence.  —  Objective 
sense. —Dative  sense.  —  Vocative.  —  Possessive  in  ei  and  with  of. 

—  Inflection  a  condition  of  formal  grammar. — Gender.  —  The  verb. 

—  Professor  Whi'ney  on  English  grammar  .     . 971 


CONTENTS.  XXIX 


CHAPTER  XrX. 

f  A  RT8  OF  SPEECH.  —  DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  LEARNING  GERMAN  AND 
LEARNING  ENGLISH. 

PAGI 

The  parts  of  speech  interchangeable  in  English. — German  must  be 
learned  by  foreigners  through  its  grammatical  rules.  — Not  so  Eng- 
lish   296 

CHAPTER  XX. 

INTERVIEWING:    A  PARENTHETICAL  CHAPTER. 

tfouns  used  as  "active  transitive"  verbs.  — A  personal  experience. 

—  "  Oystering."  —  "Suiciding" 803 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

VOICE,    TENSE,    CASE,    GENDER,   ETC. 

•Passive  voice."  —  "Auxiliary"  verbs  a  "formative  element."  — 
English  distinctively  analytical  and  logical.  —  Position.  —  The  word 
only.  —  A  passive  verb.  —  What  case  is.  —  Gender  a  matter  of  gram- 
matical form 311 

CHAPTER  XXn. 

PRONOUNS. 

rhe  grammatical  definition.  —  What  pronouns  are.  — Not  always  sub- 
stitutes for  nouns.  —  The  pronoun  marks  the  beginning  of  conscious- 
ness. —  The  most  ancient  and  unchangeable  part  of  speech ....  334 

CHAPTER  XXIH. 

SHALL  AND   WILL. 

'Shilly-shally."  —  Meaning  of  will;  of  shall.  —  Classification. — 
Would  and  should.  —  Impersonal  use  of  should.  —  History  of  this  id- 
iom. —  Misuse  by  British  writers  of  reputation 331 

PART  IV.  — WORDS  AND   PHRASES. 

CHAPTER  XXTV. 

"popular  pie." 

popular  =  good  — Meaning  of  gentleman  and  lady.  —  Disagreement 
as  to  meaning  of  terms. —  Latin-English. — Misapprehension  of  it. 

—  History  of  the  word  poptdar.  —  Perversions  of  meaning.  — Indif- 
ference of  philology  in  this  respect.  —  Lexicographers,  recorders  of 
tkct. — The  verb  to y«u>,  and  other  like  words 361 


tXX  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

CHANGES  IN   LANGUAGE. 

Words  have  properly  but  one  meaning.  — History  of  person.  — Use  of 
indiyidual.  —  Predicate  and  transpire 385 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

THE  FIRST   ENGLISH   VERBAL   CRITICISM. 

Censure  of  misuses  common  A.  d.  1770.  —  Different  to  and  different 
than 394 

CHAPTER  XXVH. 

COMMON   MISUSAGES. 

Verbs  made  from  nouns  in  ion. — Burgled.  —  Can.  —  Avocation. — 
Couple.  —  Talk.  — Fire. — Calculate.  —  Accident.  —  Every  once  in 
a  while.  — Make  way.  —  An  unsuccessful  suicide.  —  Omission  of  the 
after  either  and  or.  — In  and  into.  — Directly.  —  Anticipate.  —  Par- 
ticle.—  Remember  and  recollect. — Next.  —  Memoranda. — Their, 
referring  to  a  singular  noun.  —  Ascetic.  —  Identified.  —  Balance.  — 
Lengthened.  —  Table-board.  —  On  the  street.  —  Don't.  —  Less  and 
fewer.  — Every,  in  a  plural  sense.  — On  to.  —  Expect.  —  Remuner- 
ate. —  Plenty.  —  Executed.  —  Pocket-handkerchief  and  neck-hand- 
kerchief   401 

CHAPTER  XXVm. 

DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW. 

Had  rather  and  hadn't  oughter.  — Employee.  —  Tou  was. — Position 
of  the  adverb.  —  Dilemma.  —  At  fault  or  in  fault.  —  Debut.  —  Cum 
grano  sails.  —  Up  and  down;  above  and  below.  —  Differ  with  and 
differ  from.  — Possessives  of  compounds. — Verbs  corresponding  to 
nouns  in  ion.  —  English  defiled.  —  Eventuality;  canalized.  ^Epi- 
demic and  endemic.  —  Scientist  and  other  ists;  a  lady  poultryist. — 
Politique  and  political. — Specialty  and  specialilj'.  —  Good  usage 
versus  bad  sense.  —  The  "perfect  infinitive."  —  Feel  bad  and  feel 
badly 427 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

CANT,  TRADING  AND  OTHER. 

Difference  between  cant  and  slang.  —  Cant  the  less  respectable. — 
Various  cant  phrases.  —  Conventional  phrases  apt  to  stereotype  into 
cant :.  4S4 


CONTENTS.  XXXI 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

ELEGANT   ENGLISH, 

PAOB 

rhe  Buperfluity  of  elegance. —  Elegant  English  in  the  past.  — Modem 
reaction.  —  Examples  of  too  fastidious  or  affected  elegance. —  Ele- 
gance general'y  enfeebling.  —  The  only  way  of  learning  to  speak 
good  English iSi 


SPEECH. 


EYERT-DAY   ENGLISH. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ENGLISH   PRONUNCIATION:   THE  VOWELS. 

A  KINSWOMAN  of  mine,  a  lady  who  lives  in  the 
country,  was  looking  for  the  coining  of  a  woman  whom 
she  hired  at  odd  times  as  a  helper  in  housework  ; 
when,  after  some  delay,  a  lank,  shy  girl  appeared,  and 
said  that  her  mother  could  n't  come,  "  'cause  yes'day 
she  was  pickin'  cherries  on  sheers,  an'  she  fell  down 
an'  hurt  herself  scan'lous."  The  use  of  scandalous 
to  express  severity  of  bodily  injury,  although  not  in 
the  highest  style  of  English,  may  be  passed  over  for 
the  present;  and  certainly  the  elegant  people  who 
use  awful  to  express  a  great  degree  of  excellence  or 
of  pleasure,  as  in  "  awfully  nice,"  and  "  awfully 
pretty,"  and  even  "  awfully  jolly,"  would,  on  Chris- 
tian principles,  have  to  cast  out  a  very  considerable 
beam  from  their  ov^ti  eyes  befoi'e  picking  at  this  mote 
in  the  eye  of  their  humble  sister.  We  are  concerned 
now  with  the  conditions  on  which  she  said  that  her 
mother  was  picking  cherries.  It  was  "  on  sheers,"  a 
kind  of  payment  not  uncommon  in  the  rural  districts. 

The  custom  now  among  the  best  speakers  is  to 
?ay  shares,  not  sheers  ;  but  are  we  therefore  to  infei 
that  this  girl  pronounced  share  sheer,  or,  to  put  th« 


4  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

question  more  simply  and  concisely,  that  she  gave  to 
the  letter  a  the  sound  of  the  letter  e?  I  am  sure  that 
Bhe  did  not ;  and  for  the  very  good  reason  that  nei- 
ther she  nor  her  mother  ever  saw  the  word  share,  and 
that  had  they  seen  it  they  would  not  have  known 
what  it  was ;  for  they  could  not  read.  (And,  by  the 
bye,  I  doubt  that,  their  condition  in  life  being  what 
it  was,  they  were  therefore  any  the  less  virtuous  or 
even  the  less  happy.)  The  girl  called  her  mother's 
part  of  the  fruit  of  such  work  a  "  sheer  ^'  because  her 
mother  so  called  it,  and  the  mother  did  so  for  the 
same  reason  ;  and  so  back  through  generations,  no 
one  of  whom  probably  could  read  or  spell,  and  who 
therefore  could  not  be  said  to  give  a  the  sound  of  ee. 
But  this  word,  this  vocal  sound  which  is  indicated 
by  the  characters  share,  has  during  all  these  gen- 
erations been  written  in  other  ways,  and  in  fact  is 
now  so  written  ;  for  example,  shear  and  shire.  It 
is  written  in  the  last  way  in  the  name  of  the  part 
of  the  country  in  which  these  people  lived,  —  Mon- 
mouthshire, New  Jersey.  A  shire  is  merely  that 
part  of  a  country  which  is  cut  off  —  that  is,  sheared 
—  from  the  rest.  Indeed,  if  etymology  and  long 
usage  are  of  any  authority,  this  word,  which  is 
the  Anglo-Saxon  scire,  is  more  properly  sheer  than 
share.  I  have  not  traced  the  changes  step  by  step  ; 
but  it  would  seem  that  the  change,  which  until  re- 
cently had  taken  place  only  among  literate  people,  is 
owing  to  the  change  in  the  pronunciation  of  i  and  of 
e.  Some  centuries  ago  the  former  had,  as  it  has  now 
on  the  continent  of  Europe,  the  sound  of  our  modern 
English  e,  and  the  latter  had  the  sound,  or  nearly 
the  sound,  of  our  modern  English  a.  So  shire  came 
lo  be  written  sheer,  and  sh'^er  to  be  pronounced  and 


THE   VOWKLS.  6 

then  written  share.  But  it  would  be  difficult,  If  not 
impossible,  I  think,  to  be  accurate  in  any  such  deduc- 
tion ;  for  even  in  Anglo-Saxon  times  there  seems  to 
have  been  some  unct^tainty  upon  this  point. 

Mere  uncertainty  as  to  pronunciation  may,  however, 
be  disregarded  in  the  consideration  of  the  present 
subject :  the  confusion  of  sounds  and  of  letters  is  the 
only  important  matter.  This  has  obtained,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  in  many  other  words  ;  for  example, 
chair,  which  most  of  us  have  heard  pronounced  cheer 
by  some  people.  And  among  the  people  who  have 
BO  pronounced  it  was  Shakespeare,  in  one  passage  of 
whose  writings  the  reading  is  made  ambiguous  by 
this  confusion.  In  "  Macbeth,"  Act  V.,  Scene  3,  the 
usurper  says,  according  to  the  earliest  copy,  the  folio 
of  1623,  — 

"This  push 
Will  cheere  me  ever  or  diseate  me  now." 

Some  editors  read  "  cheer  me,"  others  "  chair  me  ;  " 
but  the  alternative  phrase,  "  or  disseat  me,"  seems  to 
me  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt  that  "  chair  me  "  is 
what  Shakespeare  meant.  There  seems,  however,  to 
be  as  little  doubt  that  he  also  meant  a  punning  sug- 
gestion of  cheer,  and  that  the  form  in  which  the  word 
appears  in  the  folio  is  a  mere  phonographic  irregu- 
larity of  spelling. 

It  is  highly  probable,  indeed,  that  Shakespeare 
called  a  chair  a  cheer,  but  this  passage  does  not 
make  it  absolutely  certain  that  he  did  so ;  for  the 
question  arises,  How  did  he  pronounce  cheer  ?  There 
is  very  good  reason  for  believirg  that  in  numerous 
rt'ords  in  which  we  use  the  sound  of  our  modern  Encj 
lijh  e  he  used  that  of  our  modern  English  a;  the 
written  letter  being  constantly  e. 


6  EVKRY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

The  question  as  to  the  sound  given  to  these  vowels 
is  involved  in  very  great  confusion,  which,  it  seems 
to  me,  will  never  be  satisfactorily  solved.  If,  how- 
ever, I  am  sure  of  anything  in  regard  to  English  pro- 
nunciation in  past  days,  it  is  that  we  can  be  sure 
only  that  certain  words  had  certain  sounds  ;  not  that 
certain  letters  had,  by  rule,  such  and  such  sounds. 
Words  were  spoken  as  independent  wholes,  and  not 
as  the  combinations  of  certain  letters ;  except  by  a 
few  pedants  whom  Shakespeare  himself  ridicules  in 
"  Love's  Labor  's  Lost."  It  is  only  of  comparatively 
late  years,  since  the  not  very  profitable  study  of  dic- 
tionaries, pronouncing  and  other,  was  begun,  that 
the  mass  of  even  the  more  intelligent  and  better  ed- 
ucated people  have  regarded  their  words  as  the  result 
of  the  putting  together  of  certain  signs  of  sounds 
called  letters.  They  spoke,  and  on  the  whole  still 
speak,  the  words  —  that  is,  the  sounds  —  signifying 
thoughts  or  things,  as  they  heard,  or  hear,  them 
spoken  by  their  fathers  and  mothers  and  their  friends, 
without  knowing  or  caring  anything  about  the  rela- 
tion of  those  words  to  written  language. 

In  the  discussion  of  the  subject  of  English  pronun- 
ciation these  facts  should  be  constantly  borne  in 
mind.  They  are,  however,  too  generally  disregarded, 
or  set  openly  at  naught.  Walker,  for  instance,  opens 
his  remarks  upon  the  pronunciation  of  the  vowels  by 
uaying,  "  A  has  three  long  sounds  and  two  short 
ones."  But,  assuming  his  classification,  the  fact  is 
that  there  are  three  long  and  two  short  vowel  sounds 
in  the  English  language  which  appear  in  syllables 
tliat  may  be  written  with  the  letter  a.  This  is  no 
quibble  ;  iov  if  in  those  words  or  syllables  the  vowel 
Bound  were    to  cliange,  —  as    in   many  cases    it    ha» 


THE   VOWELS.  7 

changed,  —  the  letter  would  yet  remain,  as  in  many 
audi  cases,  we  may  say  in  most  such  eases,  it  has  re- 
mained, although  in  some  it  has  changed ;  the  fact 
being  that  there  has  never  been,  is  not,  and,  as  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  can  never  be  an  exact  correspond- 
ence of  the  written  sign  to  the  spoken  sound. 

Among  the  interesting  recent  contributions  to  Eng- 
lish phonology  is  Professor  Whitney's  paper  on  "The 
Elements  of  English  Pronunciation,"  which  appears 
in  his  "  Oriental  and  Linguistic  Studies."  It  con- 
tains not  a  few  assertions  which  cannot  but  have  sur- 
prised those  who  are  accustomed  to  hear  English 
from  the  lips  of  its  best  speakers ;  but  these  do  little 
to  impair  the  interest  of  the  learned  writer's  record 
of  his  patient  and  minute  investigation  of  his  subject. 
Let  us  examine  this  record,  not  with  the  purpose  of 
criticising  its  phonological  principles,  but,  using  it  as 
a  guide,  with  the  humbler  although  not  less  practi- 
cally useful  purpose  of  discovering,  if  possible,  what 
is  the  best  form  of  English  speech,  and  what  are  the 
nature  and  the  causes  of  the  more  important  devia- 
tions from  that  standard. 

Professor  Whitney's  method  is  an  analysis  of  his 
own  pronunciation,  or,  in  his  own  words,  of  his  own 
"  peculiarities  of  utterance."  The  method  is  a  good 
one,  considering:  who  the  observer  is  and  who  the  ob- 
served  ;  the  former  being  a  distinguished  philologist, 
and  the  latter  one  of  that  sort  of  well-educated,  well- 
bred  Yankees  many  of  whom  speak  English  with  a 
purity  rivaled  by  only  a  few  among  the  highest  social 
classes  of  England.  And  yet  we  shall  see  some  ex- 
traordinary assertions  as  to  pronunciation  in  these 
*' confessions  of  a  provincial,"  as  Professor  Whitney 
himself  styles  them.     He  tells  us  that  for  aught  h« 


8  EV£RY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

knows  his  speech  may  be  taken  as  a  fair  specimen 
of  that  of  the  orduiarily  educated  New  Englander 
from  the  interior.^  Language,  and  particuhirly  the 
pronunciation  of  one's  mother  tongue,  is  acquired  in 
earlj'^  years  ;  habits  of  speech  then  formed  being  in 
ahnost  all  cases  ineradicable.  It  is  well,  therefore, 
that  Professor  Whitney  tells  us  whence  he  is. 

Until  he  was  sixteen  years  old  he  lived  at  North- 
ampton, Massachusetts,  "  a  shire  town  of  long  stand- 
ing, which,"  he  adds,  "in  my  youth  had  not  lost  its 
ancient  and  well-established  reputation  as  a  home  of 
'  old  families,'  and  a  scene  of  special  culture  and 
high-bred  society."  In  such  a  place  it  could  not  be 
otherwise  than  that,  as  he  says,  "  to  characterize  it 
by  a  single  trait,  the  proper  distinction  of  shall  and 
will  was  so  stoutly  maintained,  and  a  slip  in  the  use 
of  the  one  for  the  other  as  rare  and  as  immediately 
noticeable  and  offensive  as  in  the  best  society  of  Lon- 
don." His  father  was  a  "  merchant  and  banker,  not 
"limself  a  coUege-tauglit  man,  but  a  son  of  a  graduate 
of  Harvard  ; "  his  mother  "  from  the  shore  of  Con- 
necticut, her  father  a  clergyman  and  a  graduate  of 
Yale."  Better  conditions  for  the  nurture  of  good 
English  speech  there  could  hardly  be  in  this  country. 

And  now,  as  I  am  about  to  criticise  Professor 
Whitney's  "  peculiarities  of  utterance,"  perhaps  it  is 
cnly  fair  that  I  should  strip,  as  well  as  my  heavy- 
weight antagonist,  and  follow  his  example  by  show- 
ing the  conditions  under  which  I  acquired  my  knowl- 
edge of   the  sound  of  my  mother  tongue.     I  do  not, 

1  As  Professor  Whitney  h-mself  has  brought  his  pronunciation  up  before 
tie  world  as  a  standard  of  comparison,  it  is  proper  that  I  should  sa_v  tha' 
I  heard  him  spfiken  of  amcng  students  of  language  In  England  as  present- 
ng  a  marked  example  of  all  those  peculiarities  of  speech  which  are  then 
tailed  "  American." 


THE   VOWELS.  9 

however,  bring  forward  my  own  j^ronunciation  as  a 
Btandard  of  comparison ;  and  I  shall  endeavor  to 
refer  to  it  as  rarely  as  possible. 

To  begin,  then,  at  the  beginning,  although  born 
and  educated  in  New  York,  I  am  the  first  of  my  fam- 
ily that  was  so,  my  forefathers,  for  about  two  cent- 
uries previous,  having  been  in  the  habit  of  getting 
themselves  born  in  and  about  Middletown,  Connecti- 
cut ;  this  on  my  mother's  side  as  well  as  my  father's. 
Both  my  grandfathers  were  graduates  of  Yale  ;  and 
my  paternal  grandfather,  a  clergyman  of  the  Episco- 
pal church,  with  whom  I  passed  a  great  deal  of  my 
boyhood,  spoke,  I  think,  the  finest  and  richest  Eng- 
lish I  ever  heard.  There  was  a  slight  tinge  of  the 
old  days  about  it,  given  chiefly  by  his  pronuncia- 
tion of  such  words  as  angel  and  danger^  which  he 
sounded  an-gel,  dan-ger,  and  by  his  distinct  but  gen- 
tle roll  of  the  letter  r,  which,  however,  was  never 
striking  except  when  he  was  reading  prayers  or  from 
the  Bible.  I  will  add  that,  much  as  I  was  in  Con- 
necticut in  my  boyhood,  I  never  heard,  under  my 
grandfather's  roof,  or  in  the  houses  of  any  of  his 
friends,  that  sound  of  ow,  best  but  not  perfectly  in- 
dicated by  aou^  which  is  regarded  as  a  peculiar  trait 
of  Yankee  speech.  The  first  person  among  our  ac- 
quaintances from  whom  I  heard  it  was  a  lady  born 
and  bred  in  Philadelphia,  of  a  family  of  the  highest 
social  standing,  and  who  was  then  the  wife  of  a  very 
eminent  prelate.  I  was  not  more  than  eight  years 
")ld  at  the  time,  but  I  shall  never  forget  the  impres- 
sion made  upon  me  when  this  refined  and  elegant 
person  whined  out  something  to  my  mother  about 
aour  caou  (our  cow).  My  teachers,  before  I  en- 
tered college,  were  both  Massachusetts  Yankees,  on« 


10  E VERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

of  them,  I  believe,  from  Northampton.  My  associa 
tions  have  been  chiefly  with  New  England  people,  oi 
those  of  New  England  stock.  I  have  heard  English 
spoken  by  well-educated  and  well-bred  Englishmen 
n^ore  or  less  all  my  life,  but  chiefly  after  I  reached 
full  manhood.  The  only  difference  that  I  remarked 
between  their  utterance  and  that  of  my  own  kinsfolk 
and  friends  is  set  forth  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses." 

In  writing  of  phonetics  it  is  natural  to  begin  with 
the  letter  a,  vvbich  has  the  first  place  in  all  the  alpha- 
bets. This,  it  would  seem,  is  because  a  represents 
the  primitive  utterance  of  man;  b,  which  follows  it, 
representing  the  first  check,  or  a  modification  of  the 
first  check,  interruption,  or  consonant  by  which  the 
mere  vocal  breathing  is  broken  up  into  what  we  call 
articulation.  As  to  the  other  letters,  they  follow  in 
a  somewliat  promiscuous  manner. 

Walker  has  an  elaborate  "  inquiry  into  the  alpha- 
betical pronunciation  of  the  letter  A ;  "  that  is, 
whether  in  repeating  the  alphabet  we  are  to  say  Ai/e^ 
B,  C,  Ah,  B,  C,  or  Atv,  B,  C.  When  Walker  wrote, 
seventy-five  years  ago,  the  Irish  called  a  ah,  the 
Scotch,  mve ;  peculiarities  of  utterance  which  I  be- 
lieve they  still  in  some  measure  retain.  He  decides 
in  favor  of  the  English  a^e,  on  grounds  which  it  is  not 
worth  our  while  to  consider ;  but  there  is  little  room 
for  doubt,  if  any,  that  the  Irish  pronunciation,  in  this 
/espect  as  in  so  many  others,  represents  the  original 
English  sound.  This  sound  ah  has  been  gradually 
losing  ground  in  English  for  centuries.  The  change 
is  much  to  be  regretted  ;  for  with  tlie  vanishing  sound 
has  gone  much  of  the  dignity,  the;  freedom,  the  clear- 
ness, and  the  sweetness  of  our  English  speech. 

Among  the  few  adrantages  wiiich  European  Ian 


THE    VOWF.LS.  11 

guages  of  modern  and,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  of  an- 
cient days  have  over  modern  English  is  their  larger 
possession  of  this  broad,  full  tone,  which  is  the  perfec- 
tion, as  it  is  the  beginning,  of  simple  vocal  utterance. 
It  is  the  full  diapason  of  the  chest  and  vocal  organs. 
It  is  at  the  foundation  of  all  good  singing.  No  one 
can  sing  in  a  style  worthy  to  be  much  regarded  who 
cannot,  and  does  not  habitually  in  vocalization,  open 
the  mouth  wide  enough  to  put  the  first  and  second 
fingers,  one  above  the  other,  between  the  teeth,  and 
say  ah  from  the  chest,  and  sustain  that  utterance 
upon  a  succession  of  notes.  The  very  general  in- 
ability of  English-speaking  pupils  to  do  this,  because 
of  their  narrow,  contracted  vowel  utterance,  is  one  of 
the  great  difficulties  which  good  teachers  of  singing 
liave  to  encounter  in  England  and  "America." 

But  although  this  sound  has  passed  out  of  our 
speech  in  so  many  words,  I  am  surprised  to  learn  from 
Professor  Whitney  that  the  leading  orthoepists  now 
require  a  flattened  sound  like  the  vowel  sound  of  fat, 
or  one  between  the  sounds  of  far  and  of  fat,  in  the 
following  words  :  calm,  calf,  half,  aunt,  alas,  pass, 
basic,  path,  lath,  laugh,  staff,  raft,  and  after.  Without 
giving  particular  authorities,  I  must  be  permitted  to 
say  that  this  citation  of  all  the  leading  orthoepists  in 
favor  of  the  flattened  sound  is  far  too  sweeping  ;  and 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  adding  that  among  the  best 
speakers,  both  of  English  and  of  American  birth,  that 
I  have  ever  met  these  words  all  have  the  broad  ah 
8ound  oi  a  in  far  and  in  father.^  In  answer,  chance, 
blanch,  pant,  cant,  clasp,  last,  which  Professor  Whit- 

1  Tills  chapter  was  first  published  in  October,  1875.  On  my  subsequent 
risit  to  Enjjiand,  mj'  obsers-ation  of  the  pronunciation  of  the  best  speaker! 
there  confirmeii  me  in  tiie  opinion  expressed  above.  See  also  the  remark; 
♦f  Professor  Newman  upon  this  subject  in  Chapter  IV. 


12  E VERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Hey  classes  with  the  former,  a  somewhat  flattened 
Bound  has  of  late  prevailed.  In  blaspheme^  which  he 
also  ranges  with  them,  the  best  usage  fluctuates  be- 
tween the  ah  sound  and  that  of  an.  In  plant  the  lat- 
ter sound  prevails ;  and  in  gape  which  he  says  he 
learned  to  pronounce  gaJip  (as  I  did),  the  change  haa 
gone  further,  and  it  now  has  the  name  sound  of  a  and 
rhjaiies  with  rajoe,  the  noun  gap  having  of  course 
the  flattened  sound  of  a  in  rap.  Notwithstanding 
the  soundness  of  Professor  Whitney's  remark  as  to 
the  ah  sound,  that  "  an  r  following  it  [a]  in  the  same 
syllable  has  been  with  us  the  most  efficient  means  of 
its  preservation "  (an  observation  previously  made 
by  Walker  in  almost  the  same  words),  it  is  a  surprise 
to  find  him  citing  are  among  his  illustrative  examples. 
Are  is  now  indeed  pronounced  ahr  ;  but  the  r  has 
not  preserved  the  ah  sound  ;  for  no  fact  in  orthoepy 
is  more  certain  than  that  two  hundred,  and  even  one 
hundred  and  fifty,  years  ago  are  was  pronounced  aiV, 
and  that  George  Withers  in  his  manly  verses  wrote  a 
perfect  rhyme  :  — 

"  Shall  my  cheeks  grow  wan  with  cart 
'Cause  another's  rosy  are  f" 

Proofs  in  support  of  this  might  be  produced  by  the 
hundred.  The  ah  sound  has  not  been  preserved,  by 
the  r ;  rather  in  spite  of  it  pronunciation  has  fluctu- 
ated. 

Remarking  upon  the  short  e  sound,  Professor  Whit- 
ney cites  as  examples  of  it  let.,  felt.,  flesh,  bread,  said, 
iays,  jeopard,  treachery,  any,  all  of  which  have  that 
vowel  sound,  without  a  doubt,  among  the  best  speak- 
ers. And  there  could  hardly  be  better  examples  to 
ihow  that  letters  cannot  justly  be  said  to  be  "pro* 
Uounced  "  thus  or  so.     For  here  we  have    e,  ea,  ai, 


THE   VOWELS.  13 

w,  and  a  Ul  corresponding  in  written  language  to 
the  same  sound  in  the  spoken.  It  is  words  that  are 
pronounced,  not  letters.  It  is  words  as  wholes  that 
change  in  sound.  No  sane  man  pronounces  ea,  at, 
eo,  and  a  as  short  e. 

A  confession  now  surprises  us.  The  writer  says, 
"  So  far  as  I  know,  any  and  many  are  the  only  words 
in  which  an  a  is  allowed  to  be  pronounced  as  short  e  ; 
but  until  I  overcame  the  habit  by  a  conscious  effort, 
I  always  gave  it  the  same  sound  in  plague^  snake^ 
naked;  nor  did  I  escape  the  pronunciation  of  catch 
as  hetcJi,  —  a  deeply-rooted  error,  almost  universal 
among  children  in  this  part  of  the  world."  The  last 
error  is  common,  not  only  among  children,  but  among 
men  and  women,  in  all  parts  of  the  English-speaking 
world.  It  is  the  result  of  mere  slovenliness,  and  of 
that  disposition  before  mentioned  to  avoid  opening  the 
mouth,  an  act  to  the  performance  of  which  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking people  seem  to  have  developed  a  great 
and  unhappily  an  increasing  disinclination.  The  a 
in  catch  is  moderately  broad,  like  the  a  in  answer 
and  in  can;  and  consequently  it  is  "skimped"  by  all 
who  are  inclined  to  be  slovenly.  But  that  a  person 
having  the  early  associations  of  Professor  Whitney 
should  have  caught  such  pronunciations  as  pleg^  sneky 
and  nekked,  for  plague,  snake,  and  naked,  is,  as  I  have 
said,  surprising.  For  in  these  words  the  vowel  sound 
is  the  plain  modern  English  a,  which  the  most  slug- 
gish speaker  has  no  occasion  to  make  any  "  flatter  " 
or  "  narrower "  than  it  is  already.  Pleg  I  have, 
however,  heard  among  such  speakers  ;  but  snek  and 
nekked  are  new  English  words  to  my  ears.  "  Zieis' 
ure,^^  he  says,  "  I  have  always  called  leisure  [that  is 
lezure'],  as  do,  I  believe,  most  Americans."     Manj 


14  EVERY-DAY    EXLLISH. 

Americans  may,  I  believe  do,  so  pronounce  it ;  but 
I  was  taught  to  give  its  ei  tlie  sound  of  the  same 
diphthong  in  freight  and  obeisance^  —  that  is,  ai/e. 
That  this  was  its  pronunciation  on  its  introduction 
into  the  language,  and  that  it  continued  to  be  so  pro- 
nounced by  the  best  English  speakers  until  less  than 
thirty  years  ago,  I  am  quite  sure,  although  Walker 
gives  leezure,  which  of  late  has  come  to  be  its  pronun- 
ciation by  a  large  proportion  of  the  best  speakers. 

The  short  ^  Professor  Whitney  finds  to  be  the  most 
common  of  English  vowel  sounds;  and  so  it  is  if  we 
except  that  vowel  sound  which  only  we  hear  in  some, 
culture,  other.  And  here  we  have  another  illustra- 
tion of  the  truth  that  words  are  pronounced  and 
change  their  pronunciation  without  regard  to  the  let- 
ters with  which  they  are  written.  For  although  this 
"  short  i  "  sound  is  represented  most  generally  by  i, 
it  is  found  in  the  words  abyss,  busy,  minute,  women, 
sieve,  guilt,  and  build,  which  are  cited  as  examples 
by  Professor  Whitney  himself.  The  theory  of  letter 
pronunciation  requires  us  to  believe  that  people  pro- 
nounce y,  u,  i,  0,  ie,  and  ui  just  alike,  and  with  the 
sound  of  i  in  pin.  No  one  does  so.  We  pronounce 
the  words,  without  regard  to  the  signs  with  which 
they  are  written. 

Been,  which  Professor  Whitney  also  cites  as  an 
example  of  the  short  i  sound,  has  not  that  sound 
among  speakers  of  good  English,  who  give  it  the  full 
e  sound,  as  in  seen.  He  adds,  "  Been  is  often  uttered 
as  ben  in  New  England,  as  doubtless  elsewhere,  and 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  did  not  have  to  unlearn  that 
pronunciation  in  early  boyhood."  Ben,  which  I  have 
heard  only  from  the  most  slovenly  and  uneducated 
ipeakers,  is,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  confined  to  Ne\» 


THE    VOWELS.  15 

England,  or  to  places  into  which  it  has  been  taken 
by  some  New  England  people  ;  and  bin  is  almost  an 
Americanism,  although  it  is  heard  rarely  among 
some  slovenly  speakers  of  English  birth  and  breed- 
ing. From  full  e  (ge)  to  short  ^,  as  in  pin,  is  the 
easiest  of  all  transitions,  and  should  by  those  who 
wish  to  speak  the  best  English  be  watchfully  guarded 
against,  particularly  in  this  word. 

Hence,  if  for  no  other  reason,  I  would  not  for  a  mo- 
ment imply  that  the  pronunciation  bin  is  an  evidence 
of  want  of  culture  or  of  inferior  associations.  Nor  do 
I  in  this  instance,  or  in  any  other,  set  up  my  own 
pronunciation  as  a  standard  for  others.  Far  from  it. 
Indeed,  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  any  standard  my- 
self. How  to  pronounce  a  word  is  the  last  thing  of 
which  I  should  think.  I  am  here  only  considering  a 
subject  to  which  I  have  given  much  attention  in  a 
general  way  for  some  years,  and  which  appears  to 
have  now  for  many  readers  an  unusual  degree  of  inter- 
est. I  propose  no  more  than  to  offer  some  of  the  re- 
sults of  my  studies  and  of  my  observation  of  others. 
That  observation,  I  repeat,  in  the  case  of  Englishmen 
as  to  whose  culture  and  position  there  could  be  no 
question,  is  that  the  best  English  pronunciation  of 
been  makes  it  a  perfect  rhyme  with  seen. 

The  many  protests  which  I  received  against  this 
opinion  on  its  first  publication  make  it  proper  that 
I  should  refer  to  evidence  upon  the  subject  which  it 
would  be  hard  to  gainsay,  and  which  is  all  the  more 
valuable  because  it  is  indirect.  The  noting  of  an  ex- 
ception proves  a  rule ;  and  what  the  rule  is  as  to  been 
has  ])een  thus  shown  by  more  than  one  recent  English 
writer.  For  example,  in  "  Hero  Carthew,"  a  novel 
by  Louisa  Parr,  those  personages  who  are  of  the  clasi 


16  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

of  "  gentry  "  say  heen^  but  those  of  an  Inferior  class 
Bay  bin.  Thus  an  old  sailor  says :  "  '  Thank'ee,  sir. 
I  ain't  much  of  a  hand  at  speechifying,  through  allays 
having  hin  in  the  carpenter's  crew;  ....  so  the 
cap'n  can  tell  you,  as  has  often  spoke  up  for  me  be- 
fore when  the  wind  's  hin  pretty  stiff  up  there.' " 
(Chap,  xxvi.)  This  marking  of  bin  as  exceptional  is 
proof  sufficient  that  according  to  the  observation  of 
this  English  novelist  the  been  of  her  people  of  higher 
position  and  culture  had  not  the  sound  of  short  ^,  and 
did  not  rhyme  with  sin.  I  have  remarked  the  same 
distinction  in  the  works  of  other  English  writers  ;  but 
this  is  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose. 

At  the  same  time  it  should  be  said  that  the  pro- 
nunciation bin  would  not  necessarily  be  regarded  as 
an  evidence  of  want  of  culture  in  the  best  English 
society;  but,  if  noticed  at  all,  it  might  be  looked 
upon  as  an  evidence  of  Americanism  in  speech,  al- 
though ben  is  more  generally  so  regarded.  The  pro- 
nunciation bin  is  of  long  standing.  John  Wallis, 
mathematical  professor  at  Oxford,  protested  against 
it  in  his  "  Grammatica  Linguge  Anglicanse,"  1653, 
as  contrary  to  the  analogy  of  our  language.^  It  is 
worthy  of  remark  that  in  the  novel  which  I  have  cited, 
"  Hero  Carthew,"  the  personages  of  inferior  position 
not  only  say  5m,  but  use  expressions  which  are  gen- 
erally regarded  as  Americanisms  of  New  England 
origin.  For  example  :  "  '  My  dear  life  1 '  exclaimed 
the  woman,  dropping  a  succession  of  courtesies. 
'  WelU  I  never  did!  '  "  (Chap,  ii.)  " '  If  so  be  now 
I  'd  a  got  anybody  to  give  me  a  boost  up,  ....  she  'd 
take  me  right  off  the   reeV  "     (Chap,  xxvi.)     "  'I 

1  "Similiter  autem  his  pro  Aee's  eodem  errore,  quo  nonnunquam  OM 
^  het»,  ....  utrobique  contra  analogiam  linguse  ;  aed  asu  defenditur.* 


THE   VOWELS.  17 

hope  you  find  yourself  pretty  m%ddlin\  ma'am,  and 
that  you  left  Sir  Stephen,'  "  etc.     (Chap,  xxxviii.) 

As  to  "  American  "  usage,  whether  in  the  East,  the 
West,  the  North,  or  the  Soutli,  its  weight  in  the  de- 
cision of  a  point  of  orthoepy  is  nothing ;  it  is  not  to 
be  regarded,  for  reasons  which  will  appear  hereafter. 
The  dictionaries  of  Webster  and  Worcester,  which 
have  been  trained  upon  me  like  two  great  guns,  are 
both  very  useful  guides  in  pronunciation  to  those  who 
need  a  guide  ;  but  I  venture  to  say  that  they  are  not 
infallible  (if  indeed  infallibility  is  to  be  considered  as 
attainable  on  this  subject),  and  also  that  they  can- 
not be  accepted  as  authoritative,  except  where  they 
record  the  best  English  usage.  Smart  is  deservedly 
held  in  high  esteem  in  England,  and  is  the  most 
widely  known  of  all  English  orthoepists ;  but  accord- 
ing to  my  observation,  the  most  trustworthy  guide  is 
the  Rev.  P.  H.  Phelp,  of  Cambridge  University,  Eng- 
land, who  is  responsible  for  the  pronunciation  given 
in  Stormonth's  dictionary,  to  the  great  value  of  which 
there  is  eminent  British  testimony.  But  if  I  should 
find  that  either  Smart  or  Phelp  gave  bin  as  the  pi'oper 
pronunciation  of  been,  I  could  only  say  that  his  obser- 
vation of  the  best  English  speech  differed  in  this  re- 
spect from  mine.  I  find,  however,  that  Mr.  Phelp 
gives  been  with  the  sound  of  e  as  in  mete ;  which,  I 
repeat,  is  the  pronunciation  that  I  have  heard  from 
all  the  well-bred  and  well-educated  Englishmen  that 
I  have  met. 

It  has  been  supposed  by  some  persons  that  the  pro- 
nunciation of  been  with  the  short  i  sound  has  the  sup- 
port  of  Elizabethan  usage,  because  the  word  is  found 
in  the  irregular  spelling  of  that  and  of  preceding  and 
.subsequent  times  printed  h-'n^  of  which  spelling  there 
s 


18  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

are  eountless  instances.  In  the  first  place,  the  spell* 
ins:  itself  has  no  determining^  value.  For  in  the  same 
book  the  word  is  often  found  spelled  bin,  ben,  been, 
nnd  beene,  two  or  even  three  varieties  of  its  form  ap- 
pearing together  on  the  same  page.^     Moreover,  thia 

1  In  the  Paston  Letters,  altlioue;h  they  extend  through  such  a  long  period 
1422  to  1509),  and  are  from  such  numerous  and  various  iiands,  I  have  re- 
marked, as  I  find,  only  the  spellings  ben,  bene,  and  been,  never  bin.  Nor 
does  bin  appear  in  A  C-  Mery  Talys,  the  jest  book  referred  to  in  Muck 
Ado  about  Nothing,  of  which  the  earliest  edition  known  is  dated  1526. 
Ben  I  find  therein  twenty-three  times;  but  the  pronunciation  of  the  writer 
is  plainly  shown  by  the  form  bene,  which  occurs  twenty-four  times.  In 
the  Mirror  for  Magistrates,  1587,  I  find  bin,  bene,  and  beene. 
"  To  groape  me  if  allurde  I  would  assent 
To  bin  a  partner  in  their  curst  entent." 

(II.  291,  V.  47.) 
"  When  that  he  saw  his  nephews  both  to  bene 
Through  tender  years  so  yet  unfit  to  rule." 

{II.  385,  V.  10.) 
Sir  Arthur  Gorges,  1614,  leaves  us  no  doubt  as  to  what  his  prouunciatiun 
of  the  word  was. 

"  The  .small  figures  daily  seene 
Of  God-heads,  not  so  fearfull  beene." 

(Pharsalia,  Lib.  III.,  p.  102.) 
"  0  most  accursed,  fatal  teene, 
No  Libicke  slaughters  then  had  beene." 

(The  same,  Lib.  VI.,  p.  229.) 
Gorges  also  has  bin ;  but,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  note  on  page  19,  th« 
word  in,  with  which  it  rhymes,  was  pronounced  een. 
"  That  earst  to  him  had  faithful  bin 
And  in  this  state  he  now  was  in." 

(The  same,  Lib.  VIIL,  p.  318.) 
It  may  be  remarked  that  it  was  the  habit  of  writers  of  that  time  to  make 
their  rhyming  words  conform,  if  possible,  in  spelling  as  well  as  in  so'.jnd. 
In  the  first  edition  of  the  authorized  translation  of  the  Bible  (1611)  I  have 
remarked  only  the  forms  bene  and  beene.  Milton,  on  the  other  hand,  1 
believe  always  spells  this  word  bin. 

"  With  what  besides,  in  Counsel  or  in  Fight, 
Hath  bin  achieved  of  merit." 

(Paradise  Lost,  Book  II.,  I.  20,  cd.  ]6«7.) 
"Oh  for  that  warning  voice  .... 

that  now 

While  time  was,  our  first  Parents  had  bin  warned 
The  coming  of  their  secret  foe  " 

(Book  IV.,  11.  1-7. >     , 


THE   VOWELS.  19 

lupposition  disregards  tbo  important  fact  that  i  was 
then  very  commonly  pronounced  with  the  sound  of 
our  modern  English  e.  Indeed,  ^  and  e,  and  even  ee,, 
were  used  interchangeably  in  the  spelling  of  words 
which  had  the  full  English  e  sound.  For  example, 
quire  and  queere  (choir),  frize  and  freeze  (rough 
cloth),  sprite  and  spreet  (spirit),  brize  and  breeze 
(the  insect),  rice  and  rees ;  and  we  even  have  nine 
and  7ieen,  he  and  high  (I'emark  the  pronunciation  of 
highlands,  hielands').  To  go  further  back,  we  have 
in  Chaucer's  "  Romaunt  of  the  Rose  :  "  — 

"  Full  faire  was  Mirthe,  full  long  and  high  : 
A  fairer  man  I  never  sigh." 

Here  sigh  stands  for  see,  and  high  was  pronounced 
hie  or  hee.  And  to  come  down  to  the  days  of  the 
Restoration,  Etherege  says  in  "  Sir  Fopling  Flutter," 
ed.  1676,  that  certain  sins  are  "  vices  too  gentile  for  a 
shoomaker  ;  "  and  in  "  The  Gentile  Sinner,  or  Eng- 
land's Brave  Gentleman,"  by  Clement  Ellis,  Fellow 
of  Queen's  College  Oxon,  1660,  if  the  meaning  of 
the  title  were  not  plain  enough,  we  should  learn  it 
from  various  passages  like  this :  "  Whatever  others 
better  bred  or  of  a  more  gentile  education  may  think 
of  him."  (Page  45.)  Indeed,  I  could  at  short  notice 
produce  hundreds  of    examples  to  the  same  effect.^ 

In  Charles  Butler's  English  Grammar,  1634, 1  find  in  the  index  bene  and 
Hn  interchanged ;  one  about  as  often  as  the  other.     Surely  it  is  unnecessary 
to  illustrate  this  point  further.     Nor  would  it  have  been  done  here  even  at 
this  length,  were  it  not  that  in  addition  to  what  Professor  Whitney  has  said 
upon  it.  Professor  Lounsbury,  also  of  Yale  College,  has  seiiously  made 
this  old  spelling  bin  a  qtiasi  justification  of  the  pronunciation  bin,  and  the 
ground  of  an  argument  for  spelling  reform.     See  Scrlbner^s  Magazinef 
October,  1879. 
^  Here  are  a  few  of  marked  character  ai^  significance:  — 
"There  lives  within  the  very  flame  of  love 
A  kind  of  weeke  [wick'j  jr  snr.fe  that  will  abate  it." 

CHamlet,  quarto  of  1604,  Act  IV.,  Scene  7.) 


20  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

For  this  reason,  therefore,  if  for  no  other,  the  frequent 
appearance  of  5m  in  our  earlier  literature  would  give 
no  support  to  the  pronunciation  at  any  time  of  been 
with  the  short  sound  of  i. 

The  vowel  sound  in  meet^  fr^^i  meat,  been,  field,  we 
call  long  e,  and  it  now  is  so  ;  but  it  is  the  thin  i  of 
Shakespeare's  day  and  of  Milton's.  Professor  Whit- 
ney more  than  once  mentions  pique  as  an  example  of 
this  sound.  It  is  so  certainly  ;  but  if  it  is  brought 
forward  as  an  example  of  the  English  pronunciation 
of  i  with  the  continental  sound  of  that  letter  (our 

"  Strong  Enobarbe 
Is  weaker  than  the  Wine ;  and  mine  own  tongue 
Spleets  [splits]  what  it  speakes." 

(Antony  and  Cleopatra,  fol.  1623,  Act  II.,  Scene  7.) 
"Why  should  they  such  dominion  seelce 
As  never  j'et  was  heard  the  lihe  f  " 
(Sir  Arthur  Gorges'  Lucan's  Pharsalia,  1614,  Book  II.) 
And  that  this  was  no  chance  imperfect  rhj-me  is  shown  by  its  repetition. 
"  Or  that  the  wooddy  shades  I  seeke 
Let  him  (there  panting)  do  the  like." 

(The  same,  Book  IX.) 
"  Lady  Mary.     Unless  he  be  a  gentleman,  and  Bonville 
Is  by  his  birth  no  less. 
Audley.     Such  onl_v  gentile  are  that  can  maintaia 
Gentily.'''' 
(Thos.  Heywood,  The  Royal  King  and  Loyal  Subject,  1637,  Act  III., 
Scene  1.) 

Nor  does  Wallis  (cited  above)  leave  us  without  testimony  as  to  the  Ox- 
ford pronunciation  two  centuries  and  a  quarter  ago  of  sin  and  in  and  other 
words  which  now  have  the  short  obscure  sound  of  i, — testimony  which 
deprives  the  mere  spelling  bin  of  any  weight  as  evidence  that  the  word 
thus  spelled  had  any  other  vowel  sound  than  that  of  ee. 

"  Jie,  i  exile.  Hunc  sonum,  quoties  correptus  est,  Angli  per  t  breve  ex- 
primunt;  quum  vero  producitur  scribunt  ut  plurimum  per  ee,  non  rare 
tamen  per  ie,  vel  etiam  per  ea.  Ut  «'(,  sedeo;  seeH,  id  video  ;^<,  idoneus 
feet,  pedes;  Jill,  impleo;  feel,  tactu  sentio;  field,  ager;  still,  semper  quie- 
tus; steel,  clialybs;  ill,  malus;  eel,  anguilla;  in,  in;  inne,  hospitiura;  sin 
oeccatum  ;  seen,  \\snm;  friend,  amicus;  ^enii,  cacodajmon  ;  near,  prope 
iear,  charue;  hear,  audio,"  etc. 

See  also  my  Memorandums  of  English  Pronunciation  in  the  FlizcbethoM 
Era,  referred  to  on  page  38. 


THE   VOWELS.  21 

long  e),  we  must  remember  tluit  pique  is  a  French 
word  of  comparatively  late  introduction  into  our  lan- 
guage, —  so  late  that  it  still  retains  its  French  pro- 
nunciation. Except  shire,  no  really  English  word 
occurs  to  me  in  which  simple  i  has  now  the  conti- 
nental ee  sound  ;  and  sidre  has  it  only  in  combination. 

The  words  in  which  i  has  this  sound,  e.  g.,  antique^ 
pique,  intrigue,  fatigue,  caprice,  machine,  mutine,  ma- 
rine, quarantine,  are  all  lately  introduced  from  the 
French  ;  and  of  French  words  in  which  i  used  to  have 
this  sound,  profile,  oblige,  oblique,  are  now  pronounced 
with  the  English  i  by  the  best  speakers.  Canine  and 
rapine  have  the  French  sound  generally ;  but  in  this 
respect  they  are  in  process  of  change  to  the  English 
sound  of  i. 

An  example  of  a  French  word  now  in  the  course  of 
transition  is  trait,  which  we  in  this  country  pronounce 
like  an  English  word,  with  the  final  t,  to  rhyme  with 
bait  and  ivait ;  but  in  the  best  English  society  it  is 
still  pronounced  as  a  French  word,  tray,  although  it 
has  been  in  the  language  a  hundred  and  fifty  years. 
In  this  instance  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  I  think 
English  usage  very  un-English.  When  a  foreign  word 
has  been  transplanted  into  our  speech  and  has  taken 
firm  root  there,  it  should  be  thoroughly  Englished. 
So,  for  instance,  we  should  say  indexes  and  memoran- 
dums, not  indices  and  memorajida.  But  trait  with  a 
final  t  would  sound  very  strange  to  a  well-educated 
Englishman,  and  would  entirely  deprive  Dr.  Doran's 
book,  "  Table  Traits,  with  Something  on  Them,"  of 
the  significant  pun  in  its  title. 

One  of  the  principal  objects  of  Professor  Whitney's 
paper  is  to  arrive  at  the  elements  of  English  pronun- 
ciation, and  at  the  proportions  in  which  the  various 


22  EVERV-DAY    EN(;I.1STT. 

Bounds  of  vowel  and  consonant  are  heard  in  English 
speech.  When,  therefore,  he  says  that  "  the  most 
frequent  representatives  of  i  [that  is,  long  e  =  ee]  in 
English,  besides  those  instanced  above,  are  ze,  as  in 
yields  or  ei  after  c,  as  in  receive,  conceit,  or  ey  final,  as 
in  A^ey,"  he  leaves,  I  think,  an  erroneous  impression 
on  the  mind  of  his  reader.  He  seems  to  pass  by  the 
multitude  of  words  in  which  ea  has  the  sound  in  ques- 
tion. True,  he  mentions  meat,  but  merely  as  an  ex- 
ample of  the  vowel  sound  in  question.  This  sound  is 
really  one  of  the  most  common  in  our  speech,  and  it 
is  chiefly  so  because  of  those  words  which  are  written 
with  ea,  to  which  those  in  ei,  or  even  those  in  ee,  are 
as  nothing.  It  would  also  have  been  at  least  inter- 
esting and  instructive  to  many  of  his  readers  if  he 
had  brought  the  fact  to  their  attention  that  all  these 
words  in  ei,  and  all  or  nearly  all  those  in  ea,  were 
not  long  ago  pronounced  with  the  English  name 
Bound  of  a  which  is  still  heard  in  freiglit  and  in  great. 
Words  spelled  with  ei,  like  receive  and  conceit,  had 
that  sound,  as  for  example  in  Butler's  couplet,  — 

"  Some  have  been  wounded  with  conceit, 
And  died  of  mere  opinion  straight;  " 

in  which  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  rhyme  was  to  con- 
temporary English  ears  perfect.  And  even  in  people 
and  cegis,  which  he  cites  as  sporadic  cases  of  the  ee 
lound,  we  may  be  sure  as  to  the  first  that  tlie  pres- 
k«nt  Irish  pronunciation,  pa?/p?e,  is  the  old  English  one 
wliich  prevailed  in  the  Elizabethan  era  and  later,  al- 
though as  to  a^gis  we  must  be  content  with  knowing 
that  it  ought  to  have  the  aye  sound,  although  it  has 
not.  Shire,  he  says,  has  the  ee  sound  only  in  "  Amer 
ioA."  On  the  contrary,  it  always  has  that  sound  ic 
England  in  such  words  as  Devonshire,  AVarwickshiro 


THK    VOWELS.  23 

|nst  as  it  has  here.  As  a  word  by  itself,  it  is  pro- 
nounced to  rhyme  with  fi)'e;  and  that  sound  I  believe 
it  has  here  when  it  is  used.  But  we  usually  say 
county.  Professor  Whitney's  use  of  "shire  town" 
Lmpressed  me  at  the  first  blush  as  rather  singular. 


CHAPTER  n. 

THE   VOWELS   (CONTINUED). 

Although  I  intended  no  discussion  of  Professoi 
Whitney's  phonetical  principles,  I  cannot  readily  ac- 
cept his  theory  of  the  development  of  the  "  broad  a  " 
or  au  sound  ;  that  which  we  have  in  all  and  in  awe. 
This  he  regards  as  the  product  of  "  the  next  degree 
of  labial  closure  "  after  that  of  the  "  short  o  "  sound 
which  we  have  in  not  and  in  what.  According  to 
him,  the  order  of  progressive  closeness  is  shown  in 
the  vowel  sounds  of  what.,  ivar.,  hole,  full,  and  fool. 
This  seems  to  be  correct  except  in  regard  to  the  first 
two  sounds,  —  those  of  what  and  war.  He  regards 
the  latter  as  "a  step  further  from  the  neutral  a 
(^far^  "  than  the  former  is.  This  it  may  be ;  but 
that  it  is  the  product  of  an  increased  labial  closure 
does  not  seem  so  clear.  It  is  the  product  of  a  differ- 
ent form  of  the  organs,  and  is  narrower  than  the  a 
in  far  and  father ;  but  if  there  is  a  difference  in 
oreadth  between  it  and  the  vowel  sound  of  ivhat,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  war  sound  is  broader  than  the 
tvhat  sound.  Let  the  vowel  sound  of  not  and  whai 
be  uttered,  and  the  organs  kept  in  the  position  re- 
quix-ed  for  its  utterance,  and  then  let  the  vowel  sound 
of  war  and  all  be  uttered,  and  it  will  be  found  that 
the  lips  open,  instead  of  contracting;  the  mouth  be- 
comes less  narrow,  more  rounded ;  the  jaw  dropa 
•lightly,  and  the  root  of  the  tongue  does  the  same. 


THE    VOWELS.  25 

riie  sound  is  quite  as  broad  as  that  of  not  and  whaU 
and  it  is  deeper  and  more  guttural,  —  at  least,  I  find 
this  the  case  in  my  own  utterance,  and  I  have  ob- 
served that  it  is  so  in  that  of  others. 

But  the  position  of  the  vocal  organs  in  action  seems 
to  me,  even  after  carefully  examining  Mr.  Bell's 
"Visible  Speech,"  which  I  did  when  it  first  appeared, 
having  previously  examined  Dean  Wilkins's  like  at- 
tempt to  make  speech  visible,^  a  very  difficult  mat- 
ter to  determine  with  any  great  degree  of  exactness 
for  all  persons.  There  is,  of  course,  a  general  like* 
ness  in  the  position  of  the  organs  for  the  formation  of 
any  given  sound ;  but  it  seems  to  me  to  vary  some- 
what in  particular  instances.  Moreover,  I  am,  and 
we  here  are,  concerned  mainly  with  the  sound  pro- 
duced rather  than  with  the  manner  of  producing  it. 

The  letters  in  the  words  which  have  this  deep, 
broad  "aw  sound "  are  various:  a,  as  in  ivar^  ball, 
walk  ;  0,  as  in  for,  cloth,  song  ;  aw,  as  in  daub,  caught ; 
aw,  as  in  law,  dawn  ;  on,  as  in  bought,  thought ;  and 
oa,  as  in  broad.  These  vowel-letters  and  combina- 
tions of  vowel- letters  we  are  asked  by  the  spelling  re- 
formers to  believe  that  we  pronounce  alike  and  with 
a  certain  sound  of  our  English  a.  This  is  true,  with 
two  exceptions.  We  do  not  pronounce  a  or  o  or  w, 
singly  or  in  combination,  au;  and  au  is  no  sound  of 
English  a.  It  is  no  more  so  than  it  is  a  sound  of  the 
Italian  e.  We  give  those  words  that  sound  without 
any  regard  to  the  letters  used  in  writing  them  ;  and 
if  ten  years  hence  it  should  become  the  fashion 
among  certain  elegant  people  to  call  law  lay,  as  it 
tvas  the  fashion  among  such  people  not  very  long  aga 
to  call  it  lah,  we  should  all  rush  headlong  into  the 
1  Mentioned  hereafter  .n  Chapter  X. 


26  EVERY -DAY   ENGLISH. 

same    pronunciation,  although   we  should  still  writfc 
the  word  laiv. 

A  case  in  point  is  the  word  vase.  Fifty  years  ago, 
and  even  later,  the  most  common  pronunciation  of 
that  word  in  "  the  best  society  "  was  vaivse.  It  is 
now  called  vahse  or  vayse  ;  the  pronunciation  of  it  to 
rhyme  with  case  and  race.,  although  frequently  heard, 
is  not  admitted  in  polite  society.  But  its  aw  sound 
—  an  affected  one  —  although  once  a  sort  of  shibbo- 
leth of  that  society,  is  now  no  longer  heard.  Scholars 
and  students  of  art  now  call  it  vahse  ;  but  good  usage, 
if  not  the  best,  among  the  unlearned  seems  to  be  in- 
clining to  vayse.  In  extraordinary,  or,  as  Mr.  Yel- 
lowplush  wrote  it,  "  igstraivnry^''  we  cannot  rightly 
be  said  to  .pronounce  aor  as  aior.  The  effort  required 
for  the  separation  of  a  from  o  —  extra-ordinary —  has 
merely  caused  the  dropping  of  the  first  vowel,  and 
we  say  extr'' ordinary. 

In  regard  to  this  broad  a  sound.  Professor  Whit- 
ney surprises  me  by  remarking  that  as  to  many 
words  which  have  the  sound,  "  it  would  be  easy  by 
drawling  and  distorting  the  utterance  even  a  very 
little  to  make  some  of  them  seem  ungraceful  anr* 
vulgar,  and  I  would  say  the  same  of  Grod  and  dog.,  and 
their  like,  in  which  many  persons  certainly  give  the 
short  0  sound  of  woi."  Unless  I  misunderstand  this, 
it  implies  that  the  received  pronunciation  of  Grod  and 
dog  is  to  give  the  vowels  the  broad  aw  sound,  and  to 
say  Gawd  and  dawg.  I  can  hardly  believe  that  Pro- 
fessor Whitney  calls  a  dog  a  daivg.^  more  than  I  can 
believe  he  calls  it  a  dorg.  It  is  true  that  many  per- 
sons do  so  pronounce  the  word,  and  so  many  smal' 
persons  solicit  us  in  the  afternoon  to  buy  a  Neiv-eese 
or  a  Puw-eest  meaning  News  and  Post.     The  propei 


THE    VOWELS,  27 

pronunciation  of  dog  makes  it  rhyme  with  log,  or 
(as  some  persons  do  pronounce  the  latter  latvg'),  it 
were  better  to  say,  with  hog,  which,  except  in  the 
most  relaxed  Southern  speech,  I  never  heard  called 
hawg. 

Pi-ofessor  Whitney  tells  us  that  "  in  the  regular 
and  authorized  pronunciation  of  English  there  is  no 
such  thing  in  accented  syllables  as  a  true  short  o,"  an 
iissertion  which  I  am  not  inclined  or  ready  to  dispute. 
But  to  this  succeeds  a  passage  which,  if  I  understand 
the  writei',  is  so  surprising  that  I  give  it  in  full :  — 

"■  The  sound,  however,  is  a  well-recognized  element  of 
New  England  utterance  in  a  very  small  number  of  words, — 
whether  and  how  far  outside  of  New  England  and  its  colo- 
nies, and  whether  at  all  on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean,  I 
cannot  say.  By  it  none  is  as  perfectly  distinguished  from 
known  as  is  full  iromfool  and  sin  from  seen  ;  and  in  these 
two  words  (although  none  is  often  pronounced  like  nun, 
even  in  New  England)  the  sound  most  frequently  appears. 
The  list  of  words  in  which  it  is  given  varies,  I  think,  not  a 
little  in  different  individuals  ;  in  my  own  practice  it  is  nearly 
or  quite  restricted  to  none,  whole,  home,  stone,  smoke,  folki,, 
coat,  toad,  throat ;  I  have  heard  most  often  from  others,  in 
addition,  hone  and  boat." 

If  I  do  not  misapprehend  this  passage,  the  writer 
means  to  say  that  among  the  best  New  England 
Bpeakers  the  nine  words  mentioned,  from  none  to 
throat,  have  the  same  vowel  sound,  and  that  that 
Bound  is  not  long  o  or  simple  o  in  any  one  of  them. 
Of  course  we  cannot  suppose  for  a  moment  that  Pro- 
fessor Whitney  means  that  he  and  his  friends  say 
hull,  hum,  stun,  and  the  like.  This  we  might  be 
enre  of,  even  if  he  had  not  strangely  told  us  by  way 
of  warning  and   exception  that  "  none  is  often  pio 


28  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

nounced  like  nun,  even  in  New  England"  !  But  none 
the  less  it  is  clear  that  he  declares  that  among  the 
best  New  England  speakers  home,  stone,  folks,  eoat^ 
dank,  toad,  and  throat  have  not  the  long  simple  o 
Bound.  I  can  only  say  that  among  such  New  Eng- 
land people  as  Professor  Whitney  seems  to  have 
mingled  with  from  his  boyhood  I  never  heard  these 
seven  words  uttered  with  any  other  sound  than  that 
of  long  0,  which  is  also  that  given  to  them  by  the  best 
English  speakers.  They  have  the  long  o  of  note  and 
moat,  which  Professor  Whitney  tells  us  differs  from 
the  sound  just  treated  in  being  a  longer  and  a  some- 
what closer  utterance.  This  may  possibly  be  true  as 
to  whole,  but  it  is  so  in  none  of  the  others;  and  even 
as  to  that  I  have  observed  that  the  best  English 
speakers,  and  according  to  my  observation  the  best  in 
"America,"  are  rather  particular  to  avoid  any  leaning 
toward  hull  by  a  somewhat  marked  insistence  upon 
the  0,  making  not  the  slightest  difference  between 
whole  and  hole.  Of  this,  the  following  passage  in 
Carlyle's  Edinburgh  inaugural  address  happens  to  be 
plain  proof :  "  We  have  in  Scotch,  too,  '  hole '  and  its 
derivatives  ;  and  I  suppose  our  English  word  '  whole ' 
(with  a  vf),  all  of  one  piece,  without  any  hole  in  it, 
is  the  same  word."  As  to  none,  not  only  is  it  often 
pronounced  like  nun  in  New  England  (that  being  its 
pronunciation  by  the  best  English  speakers),  but,  un- 
less I  am  in  error,  the  number  of  educated  New  Eng- 
landers  who  give  it  any  other  sound,  or  (remember- 
ing the  speech  of  people  elderly  in  my  youth,  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  say)  who  for  fifty  years  and  more  have 
given  it  any  other  sound,  is  very  small  indeed ;  sc 
Bmall  that  tliey  have  escaped  my  observation  entirely, 
lilthough  I  have  been  led  to  believe  that  my  sensitive 


THE   VOWELS.  29 

Hess  to  sounds  is  somewhat  more  than  usually  diili- 
Date. 

As  to  the  conversion  of  long  o  into  short  w,  the  ob- 
scure vowel  sound  in  none  and  nnn^  very  remarkable 
testimony  has  come  to  me  from  a  Boston  correspond- 
ent,—  a  Yankee  of  Connecticut  birth,  —  who  writes 
about  the  pronunciation  of  words  like  stone.  He 
Bays,  "  The  sound  commonly  given  them  is  neither  o 
nor  w,  but  nearly  o-w,  pronounced  very  quickly  and 
run  together,"  which  I  do  not  quite  apprehend  or 
understand  ;  and  he  adds,  "  As  to  the  pronunciation 
stun^  etc.,  I  have  never  heard  it ;  not  even  from  a  hill 
farmer  or  a  rural  school-boy."  This,  coming,  as  it 
does,  from  an  intelligent  and  observant  man,  who  has 
evidently  given  this  subject  no  little  attention,  will 
astonish  many  others  besides  myself ;  for  it  seems  to 
me  that  no  one  could  have  been  at  any  time  in  rural 
New  England  without  hearing  the  pronunciation  stun 
once  for  every  stone  he  saw  in  the  fences.  All  this, 
however,  illustrates  the  difficulty  which  I  have  here- 
tofore pointed  out  as  inherent  in  this  subject,  —  that 
it  is  almost  impossible  for  one  person  to  express  to 
another  by  signs  the  sound  of  any  word.  Only  the 
voice  is  capable  of  that ;  for  the  moment  a  sign  is 
used  the  question  arises.  What  is  the  value  of  that 
sign  ?  The  sounds  of  words  are  the  most  delicate, 
fleeting,  and  inapprehensible  things  in  nature ;  far 
more  so  than  the  tones  of  music,  whether  made  by 
the  human  voice  or  by  instruments.  Moreover,  the 
question  arises  as  to  the  capability  to  apprehend  and 
distinguish  sounds  on  the  part  of  the  person  whose 
Bvidence  is  given. 

As  to  the  "  true  short  w,"  I  find  in  Professor  Whib 
oey's  dissertation  what  appear  to  me  to  be  some  her 


80  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

esies,  but  they  are  pei'baps  the  result  of  a  lack  of 
fine  distinction  of  sounds,  'which  causes  the  writer  to 
misrepresent  somewhat  his  own  utterance.  He  tells 
us  that  this  "  short  u  "  sound  is  heard  in  full,  hosom, 
could,  and  good,  and  that  "  it  stands  related  to  its 
corresponding  long  in  fool,  ride,  move,  etc.,  precisely 
as  the  i  of  sin  to  that  of  seen^  But  the  vowel  sound 
of  the  first  syllable  of  bosom  in  the  received  pronun- 
ciation of  the  best  speakers  is  surely  not  the  vowel 
sound  either  of  fidl  or  of  good  and  could.  It  is  the 
full  long  u  or  oo  sound,  as  if  the  word  were  written 
boosom.  If  full  were  pronounced  with  the  vowel 
sound  of  the  first  syllable  of  bosom,  it  would  rhyme 
perfectly  with  fool.  Nor  can  I  accept  the  pronunci- 
ation of  does  dooz  by  souie  New  England  people  — 
among  whom  Professor  Whitney  says  be  is  "  natu- 
rally"—  as  containing  the  vowel  sound  of  foot,  to 
which  he  likens  it.  That  sound  of  does  is  merely 
that  of  do  with  the  added  s  of  inflection,  and  do  has 
the  pure  long  u  or  oo  sound  ;  while  that  of  foot  is 
quite  another,  shorter  and  "  closer." 

Of  the  few  words  that  have  the  short  u  sound  Pro- 
fessor Whitney  may  be  quite  right  in  saying  that  a 
part  of  them  are  recent  corruptions  from  the  long 
u  sound  ;  but  he  impairs  the  value  of  his  remark 
by  adding,  "  like  that  which,  as  above  noticed,  has 
converted  whole  and  home  into  tvhole  and  home  ;"  for 
whole  and  home  have  the  pure  long  o  sound.  But  he 
is  right  in  saying  that  the  change  appears  to  be  still 
going  on,  and  that  ^'■rood,  roof,  and  root  are  words  in 
which  one  often  hears  the  short  instead  of  the  long 
sound  ;  and  root  especially  is  very  widely  and  com- 
monly pronounced  like  foot.'"  I  have  even  heard  a 
very  highly  educated  person,  whose  English  is  gen- 


THE    VOWELS.  31 

erally  irreproachable,  call  a  spoon  a  spwi.  This  is  the 
result  of  the  English  tendency  to  vowel  compression 
before  remarked  upon.  As  to  rood,  roof,  and  root, 
however,  they  at  least  cannot  be  reckoned  among  the 
"  recent "  corruptions  from  long  u  ;  nor  shall  I  assume 
that  Professor  Whitney's  remark  necessarily  implies 
that  they  are  so.  These  words  all  formerly  had  the 
pure  open  o  sound,  and  were  written  rode,  fofe,  and 
rote.  Readers  of  Chaucer  will  remember  the  first 
lines  of  the  Prologue  to  the  "Canterbury  Tales:  "  — 

"Whan  that  Aprille  with  his  schoures  swoH 
The  drought  of  Marche  hath  perced  to  the  rote." 

In  some  —  most  of  the  best  —  manuscripts  of  the 
"Tales"  we  find  soote  and  roote,  and  this  is  the 
reading  preferred  by  Morris ;  but  the  doubling  of  the 
0  was  only  an  early  device  to  attain  conformity  be- 
tween the  sign  and  the  sound,  which  proved  vain,  as 
it  ever  must,  I  think.  All  the  words  so  spelled  have 
come  to  that  pure  sound  of  u  (the  continental,  not 
the  English  u^  of  which  in  fact  the  distinctive  sign 
in  English  is  now  oo.  Another  instance  this,  and  a 
very  marked  one,  of  entire  irrelation  between  letters 
and  pronunciation  ;  for  what  phonetic  incongruity 
could  be  more  manifest  at  a  glance  than,  for  exam- 
ple, the  indication  of  the  sound  heard  in  the  first  syl- 
lable of  riiral  by  the  union  of  two  o's  ? 

In  his  discussion  of  the  pure  long  u  sound  (as  in 
rule,  food,  etc.),  Professor  Whitney  remarks  that  the 
pronunciation  of  wound,  a  bodily  inniry,  "is  a  bone 
of  contention."  There  is  variation  in  usage  as  to  this 
word  ;  but  a  large  majority  of  the  best  speakers  pro- 
nounce it  with   the  long  u  or   oo   sound,  —  woond. 

have  heard  of  one  of  the  minority  who,  being  re- 
monstrated with  by  a  lady  for  Ins  pronunciation,  and 


32  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

asked,  "  Why  don't  you  call  that  yord  woond  ?  "  re« 
plied,  "  Madam,  I  have  never  foond  sufficient  gvoond 
that  it  should  have  that  soond."  If  he  had  been  a 
Scotchman,  he  would  have  foond  it.  Professor  Whit- 
ney thinks,  and  with  reason,  that  the  long  u  pro- 
nunciation of  this  word  should  be  encouraged,  to 
establish  a  distinction  between  it  and  wound  from 
wind. 

And  here  I  will  remark  upon  a  very  common  and 
very  ridiculous  mistake  as  to  this  word.  We  find  in 
novels  and  sketches,  and  even  in  poetry,  such  phrases 
as  "a  horn  was  wound,"  "he  wound  his  horn,"  and 
in  plays  such  stage  directions  as  "  a  horn  wound  in 
the  distance,"  and  many  people  use  the  same  or  a  like 
phrase  in  their  ordinary  talk.  An  example  is  fur- 
nished by  the  first  stanza  of  Chatterton's  "  Death  of 
Sir  Charles  Bawdin,"  in  the  spurious  Rowley  Poems : 

"  The  feathered  songster  chaunticleer 
Haa  wounde  his  bugle  home, 
And  tolde  the  earlie  villager 
The  coins  nge  of  the  inorne." 

A  notion  seems  to  prevail  that  the  phrase  "  winding 
a  horn  "  is  an  expression  of  the  undulating,  melodic 
effect  of  a  horn,  and  particularly  of  that  effect  when 
it  is  "  wound  in  the  distance."  But  the  winding  of 
a  horn  is  the  giving  it  wind  ;  and  in  the  line  of  the 
old  song,  "  The  huntsman  is  winding,  is  winding,  is 
winding  his  horn,"  the  words  do  not  mean,  as  most 
people  seem  to  think,  that  the  huntsman  is  producing 
a  lovely  and  "  romantic  "  sound,  but  merely  that  he 
.s  applying  his  lips  to  the  mouth-piece,  puffing  out 
his  cheeks,  and  blowing  wind  into  the  instrument 
Thus  in  Chapman's  play,  '  The  Widow's  Tears, 
A.ct  IV.,  Scene  2,  we  have  — 


THE  VOWELS.  33 

—  "you  lament 
As  did  the  Satyre  once  tliat  ran  affrighted 
From  Uie  homes  sound  tliat  he  himselfe  had  winded.^' 

Chatterton's  blundering  use  of  wound  for  winded  was 
one  of  the  many  plain  proofs  of  his  forgery. ^  A  ball 
of  thread,  a  watch,  is  wound  ;  a  horn  is  winded,  that 
is,  given  wind  ;  the  huntsman  is  wind-ing,  not  wlne- 
ding,  his  horn,  for  it  is  as  absurd  to  say  that  a  man 
wound  a  horn  as  to  say  that  he  blew  up,  instead  of 
wound  up,  a  clock  that  had  run  down. 

Every  person  who  has  given  even  a  little  attention 
to  phonetics  must  know  that  the  English  w  is  a  diph- 
thong, formed  by  the  union  of  the  English  e  with 
the  pure,  or  oo,  sound  of  u.  Thus  the  sound  of  duke^ 
pure,  and  like  words  is  de-ook,  pe-oor,  etc. ;  the  e  be- 
ing the  long  e,  but  touched  very  briefly,  very  lightly. 
This  e  sound  being  that  of  i  in  the  classical  and  con- 
tinental languages,  the  introduction  of  it  before  an- 
other letter  is  called  the  iotizing  of  that  letter ;  from 
iota,  the  Greek  name  of  ^.  How  long  the  English  u 
has  been  iotized  in  certain  combinations  seems  to  me 
very  difficult  to  determine.  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
that  the  introduction  of  the  e  (or  i)  sound  is  compar- 
atively recent.  The  pure  sound  of  u  —  that  which  is 
common  to  all  languages  —  occurs  in  English  words 
which  are  spelled  with  u,  ou,  o,  and  oo;  for  example, 
rule,  uncouth,  ivound,  do,  fool.  Professor  Whitney 
remarks  that  words  of  the  o  class  which  have  this 
Bound  have  evidently  changed  their  o  sound  for  a  u 
in  comparatively  recent  times.  This  may  be  ac- 
cepted as  generally  true  ;  the  "  watoe  him,"  which 
we  sometimes,  although  very  rarely,  hear  from  un- 

l  Another  appears  in  this  stanza :  the  use,  in  the  second  line,  of  han  (aq 
tid  contracted  plural  form  of  have)  with  a  lingular  nominative. 
3 


34  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

educated  persons,  beiiig  doubtless  a  relic  of  the  old 
pronunciation  of  to.  Nevertheless  it  is  to  be  remarked 
that  a  pure  w  (or  oo)  sound  in  some  words  written 
with  0  is  of  considerable  antiquity.  In  Shakespeare's 
time  Rome  was  pronounced  room  (a  point  as  to  which 
in  my  edition  of  the  poet's  works  I  expressed  some 
doubt)  ;  and  gold  was  pronounced  goold  by  many 
educated  persons  even  in  the  last  generation.  Walker 
gives  both  gold  and  goold^  and  says,  "  It  is  much  to 
be  regretted  that  the  second  sound  of  this  word  is 
grown  much  more  frequent  than  the  first."  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  it  had  not  become  more  com- 
mon, but  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  in  Walkers 
time  slowly  yielding,  and  has  now  yielded,  to  the  pure 
sound  of  0.  If  this  be  the  case,  it  merely  furnishes 
another  example  of  the  fact  that  we  pronounce  words, 
not  letters. 

There  is,  however,  very  little  difficulty  or  disagree- 
ment as  to  the  pronunciation  of  words  of  the  o  class 
which  have  the  pure  u  or  oo  sound.  It  is  in  regard  to 
the  English  or  iotized  u  that  there  is  uncertainty  and 
disagreement,  —  a  disagreement  which  is,  or  was,  a 
shibboleth  of  cultivated  speech.  The  Turveydrops 
of  language  would  turn  with  scorn  from  a  man  who 
pronounced  due  or  deiv  with  the  pure  u  sound,  as  do 
or  too.  And  according  to  my  observation,  those  words, 
and  some  others,  as  duty^  neiv,  stew,  etc.,  are  pro- 
nounced by  the  best  speakers  invariably  with  the  io- 
tized u.  With  some  people  a  preceding  d  is  soft- 
ened by  the  iotized  u  into  j  ;  so  that  I  heard  one  of 
these  persons,  who  had  prejudice  against  the  Hebrew 
race,  object  with  savage  wit  to  residence  at  Bath  on 
Long  Island,  that  he  found  the  p^ace  would  not  suit 
him,  because  of  the  depressing  dampness,  —  the  morr> 
ing  and  the  evening  Jews. 


THE    VOWELS.  35 

The  introduction  of  the  e  (or  %)  before  u  is,  how- 
ever, difficult  after  r,  s,  or  I.  Jl,  indeed,  seems  to  be 
quite  destructive  of  the  English  u,  which  after  that 
consonant  is  always  pronounced,  oo.  The  effect  of  the 
English  u  in  rude  or  rule,  for  instance,  is  as  ridiculous 
as  its  utterance  is  difficult.  And  I  am  surprised  at 
seeing  that  Professor  Whitney,  who  of  course  recog- 
nizes this  difficulty  and  the  consequent  law  of  ortho- 
epy, includes  fruit,  brew,  and  rheum  among  his  ex- 
amples of  words  having  the  long  u  sound  "  more  or 
less  mixed  with  a  preceding  i  or  ^  sound  ;  "  his  othex 
examples  being  duty,  pure,  due,  feud,  few,  ?a\d  steiv. 
According  to  my  observation,  the  best  usage  requires 
absolutely  the  iotized  u  (^e-oo)  in  the  last  six  words  ; 
but  as  absolutely  the  pure  u,  or  oo,  sound  in  fruit, 
rheum,  and  brew.  Well-bred  people  do  not  laugh  at 
each  other's  speech  ;  but  I  think  that  if  any  vagary 
of  pronunciation  would  provoke  among  such  people 
an  internal  smile  which  might  become  visible,  it  would 
be  the  pronunciation  of  fruit  and  brew  asfre-oot  and 
bre-oo.  This  I  have  never  heard  ;  ^  but  I  have  heard 
from  a  few  persons  of  some  culture,  but  more  affecta- 
tion, a  like  pronunciation  of  column  —  colyume.  Pro- 
fessor Whitney  seems,  however,  to  have  detected  an 
intermediate  sound  between  the  pure  u  or  oo  and  the 
iotized  u  (e-oo  or  you~)  ;  for  he  says,  in  discrimination, 
"  In  my  usage,  and  in  that  of  those  who  pronounce 
with  me,  there  is  no  intermediate  sound  or  compro- 
mise whatever  between  a  pure  u,  the  vowel  sound  of 
food  and  move,  and  an  absolute  yu,  in  which  the  y 
element  is  as  distinctly  uttered  as  it  would  be  if  it 
were  written.  The  general  rule  with  us,  as  with  the 
"est,  is  that  the  y  sound  is  prefixed;  and  the  excep 
1  The  Yankee  u  is  not  an  iotized  «      See  subsequent  remarks  upon  it 


S6  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

tional  cases,  in  which  the  y  is  omitted  and  the  u  left 
pure,  are  those  in  which  the  u  is  so  preceded  that  the 
insertion  of  the  semi-vowel  between  it  and  its  prede* 
cessor  is  phonetically  difficult."  To  this  rule  there 
seems  to  me  to  be  neither  objection  nor  exception. 
Nor  have  I  ever  remarked,  and  I  admit  that,  possibly 
fi'om  lack  of  sufficient  delicacy  of  ear  or  of  speech,  I 
cannot  conceive,  an  intermediate  sound  between  the 
pure  and  the  iotized  u.  An  attempt  to  introduce  it 
would,  in  my  opinion,  be  an  affectation  that  would 
result  in  laughable  disaster. 

This  iotized  m,  which,  as  I  have  already  remarked, 
is  in  my  opinion  of  comparatively  late  introduction, 
I  believe  to  have  taken  the  place  of  the  genuine  old 
English  XI ;  and  the  sound  of  that  letter  I  believe 
to  have  been  the  Yankee  u  as  heard  in  view^  in  irue^ 
in  pure^  and  in  fruit.  This  sound  has  been  entirely 
misapprehended  and  absurdly  caricatured.  The  stage 
Yankee,  even  in  America,  uttei-s  instead  of  it  a  sound 
which  is  quite  as  unlike  it  as  either  the  pure  u  (or  oo) 
or  the  iotized  u  (or  you)  is,  —  a  snarling,  nasal  t/gaow. 
But  the  real  Yankee  m  is  a  simple  sound,  pure  and 
clean  of  all  admixture,  and  jjarticularly  so  with  regard 
to  any  nasality.  It  is  very  difficult  of  utterance  by 
those  who  have  not  flexible  organs  of  speech,  and  whc 
have  not  caught  it  among  those  by  whom  it  is  used 
unconsciously.  It  would  have  been  heard  in  perfect 
tion  from  many  a  well-educated  Yankee  of  two  gen- 
erations past  in  his  reading  of  Johnson's  co'iplet :  — 

"  Let  observation  with  extensive  view 
Survey  manliind  from  China  to  Peru." 

He  would  have  given  the  same  u  sound  in  Peru  and 
In  view ;  but  he  would  not  have  said  Pe-reoo  in  the 
one  case,  nor  voo  in  the  other,  as  some  people  S'^,ona  it 


THE   VOWELS.  37 

think  that  he  would  have  said.  His  vowel  would  have 
had  no  trace  of  e  (or  i),  and  yet  it  would  not  have 
been  the  pure  or  continental  u.  To  express  it  by 
signs  of  any  certain  value  at  present  is  quite  impossi- 
ble ;  and  I  am  therefore  altogether  unable  to  convey 
to  my  readers  in  type  any  suggestion  of  its  sound,  or 
to  describe  it,  except  by  saying  that  it  was,  or  rather 
is,  something  between  the  French  u  and  the  pure  oo, 
and  that  so  far  from  being  a  sneaking,  nasal  sound  it 
is  remarkably  free,  open,  and  firm.^  But  thousands 
of  my  readers  must  have  heard  it,  and  there  are  tens 
of  thousands  of  people  in  New  England  at  this  day 
by  whom  it  is  uttered  without  any  consciousness  thai 
they  have  any  peculiarity  of  speech.  I  know  a  gen- 
tleman of  unusual  intelligence,  culture,  and  refinement 
in  New  York,  whose  u  is  invariably  this  Yankee  u  in 
perfection.  This  u  sound  I  believe  to  have  passed 
into  the  modem  English  iotized  u  since  the  Eliza- 
bethan period ;  at  which  time,  I  believe,  u  had  but 
two  sounds,  this  (now  Yankee)  one  and  the  pure  oo 
Bound.  The  obscure,  nondescript  sound  which  is  now 
heard  in  mud,  curly,  ugly-,  young,  was  then,  I  believe, 
unknown ;  words  of  that  class  having  been  pronounced 
at  that  time  with  the  pure  u  sound,  mood,  coorl,  oogly^ 

1  Three  years  and  more  after  the  first  publication  of  this  passage  in  the 
Galaxy,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  talking  with  Mr.  Alexander  Ellis  upon  the 
Bubject  of  pronunciation,  or  rather  of  listening  as  he  talked.  I  brought 
this  Yankee  u  to  his  attention.  He  was  very  much  interested  in  it.  The 
sound,  he  said,  was  quite  a  new  one  to  him.  He  made  me  repeat  it  again 
and  again  in  various  words,  seeking  to  get  the  sound  pure  and  simple, 
without  the  effect  of  a  preceding  consonant  in  the  word  itself,  or  at  the  end 
of  the  word  immediately  before  it.  This  is  extremelj'  difficult  ;  but  at  last 
I  thought  of 

"  The  ewe  and  lamb  together  play." 

Ewe  is  the  only  word  in  the  language  in  which  this  u  sound  is  heard  un- 
modified by  a  consonant,  and  this  line  is  the  only  one  containing  it  that  I 
tan  remember  in  which  the  p-eceding  word  does  not  end  with  a  consonant. 


88  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

yoong.  (See  my  "  Memorandums  of  English  Pronunx 
elation  in  the  EHzabethan  Era,"  published  in  vol.  xii. 
of  my  edition  of  Shakespeare,  1862,  and  reprinted  in 
Ellis's  "  Early  English  Pronunciation,"  vol.  ii.,  Lon- 
don, 1869.) 


CHAPTER  III. 

CONSONANTS  :  THE  BONES  OF  SPEECH. 

Our  examination  of  the  sounds  and  the  letters  o£ 
the  English  Linguage — an  examination  which  does 
not  profess  to  be  either  "scientific"  or  "exhaustive" 
—  having  carried  us  through  the  vowels  to  the  Old 
English  u  and  the  New  England  u,  only  the  conso- 
nants remain  to  engage  our  attention  in  this  part  of 
our  subject.  The  nature  of  these  elements  of  speech 
(most  of  which  can  hardly  be  called  sounds,  as  we 
shall  see),  and  the  superficial  purpose  of  our  studies, 
will  make  this  part  of  our  task  comparatively  short. 
In  using  the  word  superficial,  however,  I  imply  its 
real  and  not  necessarily  its  metaphorical  meaning. 
For  what  we  now  concern  ourselves  about  is  the  ef- 
fect of  the  sounds  of  letters  upon  the  pronunciation 
of  words,  rather  than  the  manner  in  which  those 
sounds  are  formed  by  the  vocal  organs.  I  pass  by 
those  physiological  and  even  psychological  relations 
and  conditions  which  occupy  so  much  of  the  attention 
of  Professor  Whitney,  Mr.  Bell,  and  others  who  make 
phonology  a  special  study.  And  it  is  to  be  remarked 
that  the  science  of  phonology  and  the  art  of  orthoepy 
(if  the  right  utterance  of  our  mother  tongue  be  prop- 
erly an  art,  which  I  more  than  doubt)  are  related 
only  because  they  are  both  concerned  with  spoken 
language.  Orthoepy  is  entirely  independent  of  plio- 
aology,  and  phonology  finds  in  orthoepy  only  the  ma- 


to  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

terials  upon  which  it  works,  which  indeed  it  finds  no 
less  in  cacoepy. 

Consonants  are  the  bones  of  speech.  By  means  of 
consonants  we  articulate  our  words  ;  that  is,  give  them 
joints.  We  sometimes  find  orthoepists  and  phonol* 
ogists  speaking  of  the  articulation  of  vowels,  an  ex- 
pression which  is  not  correct.  We  utter  vowels,  we 
articulate  with  consonants.  If  we  utter  a  single  vowel 
sound  and  interrupt  it  by  a  consonant,  we  get  an  ar- 
ticulation. Thus  if  in  uttering  the  sound  ah  we  mo- 
mentarily interrupt  it  by  p^  we  get  an  articulation, 
and  have  apa.  If  in  addition  to  this  interruption 
we  intercept  the  vow^el  sound  before  its  emission  by 
p,  we  h'Aye  papa.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  we  utter 
no  sound  but  that  of  ah.  All  else  that  we  do  is  to 
prevent  and  to  interrupt  that  sound  by  bringing  the 
lips  firmly  together  and  opening  them  again.  We  ar- 
ticulate and  make  our  two-syllable  word  by  that  solu- 
tion of  vowel  continuity. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  dialogue  between  two  Low- 
land Scotchmen,  a  farmer  and  a  tradesman,  which  il- 
lustrates our  subject.  The  farmer  takes  up  a  fabric, 
and  these  questions  and  answers  follow  :  — 

«Oo?" 

«  Ay,  00." 

"Ah  00?" 

"  Ay,  ah  oo." 

"  Ah  ae  oo  ?  " 

"  Ay,  ah  ae  oo." 

That  is,  "  Wool  ?  "  «  Yes,  wool."  «  All  wool  ?  ' 
"  Yes,  all  wool."  "  All  one  wool  ?  "  »  Yes,  all  one 
wool."  Those  men  had  boned  their  words  just  as 
thoroughl;y  as  a  cook  ever  boned  a  turkey  to  be 
Berved  up  in  a  soft,  oval,  and  limbless  shape  upon  a 


CONSONANTS.  41 

supper  table.  But  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word 
this  did  not  affect  their  articulation,  because  the 
words  which  they  used  were  all  monosyllables,  and  so 
had  no  joints.  But  the  form  and  character  of  their 
words  were  seriously  affected.  For  a  consonant  com- 
ing at  the  end  or  at  the  beginning,  or  at  both  the 
end  and  the  beginning,  of  a  monosyllable  gives  it 
strength  and  also  clearness  of  outline. 

Consonants  thus  not  only  give  speech  its  articula- 
tions or  joints,  but  they  help  words  to  stand  and  have 
form,  just  as  the  skeleton  keeps  the  animal  from  fall- 
ing into  a  shapeless  mass  of  flesh.  Therefore  con- 
sonants are  the  bones  of  speech  ;  and  as  the  bones 
of  animals  have  no  active  sti-ength  in  themselves, 
but  furnish  the  supports  and  the  levers  to  which 
the  organs  of  action,  the  muscles,  are  attached,  so 
true  consonants  have  no  power  of  utterance  in  them- 
selves, but  merely  serve  as  assistants  or  as  modifiers 
of  vowel  utterance.  Excepting  exclamations,  such  as 
aA,  cA,  and  the  Greek  ai,  which  can  hardly  be  called 
words,  there  are  very  few  words  entirely  without  con- 
sonants. The  French  eau,  strangely  pronounced  oA, 
is  such  a  word  ;  but  it  became  so  by  the  suppression, 
through  the  process  of  phonetic  decay,  of  a  very  pro- 
nounced consonant,  the  k  in  the  Latin  aqua,  from 
which  it  came  by  these  stages:  aqua — aqva — ava  — 
eve  —  eave  —  eaue  —  eau.  Thus,  great  as  the  changes 
were  through  which  aqua  passed,  it  took  a  thousand 
years  of  phonetic  decay  to  deprive  it  entirely  of  all 
consonantal  sound ;  for  it  was  not  until  the  fourteenth 
century  that  it  passed  from  eave  into  eaue.^  It  is  in- 
teresting to  remark  that  there  does  not  remain  in  this 
word,  the  real,  the  spoken  word^  one  trace  of  its  origi- 

^  See  Brachet's  Dictionnaire  Etymologique  de  .a  Langue  Frangaise. 


42  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

nal  sound,  either  vowel  or  consonant.  The  wordS; 
that  is,  the  vowel  sounds,  eau  (o)  and  aqua  have  noth- 
ing whatever  in  common.  Their  connection,  like  that 
of  many  a  human  ancestor  and  descendant,  is  imper- 
ceptible and  purely  historical. 

The  number  of  vowel  words,  not  only  in  any  one 
language,  but  in  all  languages  that  have  a  literature, 
taken  together,  is  very  small.  Expect  almost  as  soon 
to  see  a  vertebrate  animal  with  a  gristle  skeleton,  or 
none  at  all,^  as  a  real  word  without  a  consonant.  In 
English  we  have  only  two  that  I  now  i-eraember  — 
y  ou  and  /;  or,  if  we  are  to  regard  yew  and  eive,  eye 
said  aye^  as  being  phonologically  other  words,  six. 
There  may  be  others,  but  I  am  not  able  now  to  recol- 
lect them.  The  Romance  languages,  whose  tenden- 
cies to  vowel  utterance  are  much  stronger  than  those 
of  the  Teutonic  languages,  have  more  of  such  words; 
but  even  they  have  very  few  of  them,  and  generally 
get  them  hy  the  process  of  phonetic  decay.  In  the 
only  great  French  epic  poem,  the  "  Chanson  de  Ro- 
land," which,  however,  is  in  such  old  French  that  it 
is  almost  as  easily  read  by  an  uneducated  German  or 
Englishman  as  by  a  Frenchman,  unless  he  is  a  scholar, 
the  combination  Aoi  appears  at  the  close  of  many  of 
the  stanzas.  Its  significance  thus  far  is  undetermined 
by  any  consent  of  critics.  It  is  not  even  certain  that 
t  is  a  word.  I  cannot  but  think  that  it  is  an  ex- 
clamation of  sorrow,  a  wail  over  the  bloody  defeat  in 
Roncesvalles.  If  it  be  a  word,  being  a  trisyllable, 
rt  is  noteworthy  to  us  at  present  as  the  longest  word 
known,  I  believe,  without  a  consonant  in  au}^  modern 
Indo-European  language. 

The  consonant  is  the  distinguishing  element  of  hu 
1  Not  quoted  from  Sir  Boyle  Roche. 


CONSONANTS.  43 

man  speech.  Man  has  been  deBned  in  various  ways, 
according  to  various  attributes,  functions,  and  habits. 
He  might  well  be  called  the  consonant-using  animal. 
He  alone  of  all  animals  uses  consonants.  It  is  the 
consonant  which  makes  the  chief  difference  between 
the  cries  of  beasts  and  the  speech  of  man.  This  dis- 
tinguishing difference  we  recognize  when  we  say  that 
their  cries  are  inarticulate.  And  so,  when  a  man 
"makes  a  beast  of  himself"  with  strong  drink,  one 
of  the  first  and  most  unmistakable  signs  of  his  condi- 
tion is  that  his  speech  becomes  inarticulate. 

Attempting  to  express  the  cries  of  animals,  we 
say,  for  example,  that  a  sheep  cries  haa.  But  it  is 
not  so.  That  is  only  the  best  that  we  can  do  to 
express  the  sound  of  bleating.  Close  attention  will 
enable  any  person  with  a  delicate  ear  to  perceive 
that  the  sheep  utters  only  a  compressed,  attenuated, 
and  vibrating  ah,  without  any  true  consonantal  sound  ; 
the  seeming  consonantal  sound  produced,  however, 
being  much  more  like  m  than  like  h.  There  is  really, 
however,  neither  m  nor  h  ;  only  a  sound  which  care- 
lessly heard  may  be  loosely  expressed  by  ba-a-a  or 
by  ma-a-a.  Nor  does  a  cow  produce  a  sound  much 
like  moo.  Her  lowing  has  some  little  semblance  to 
the  vowel  sound  of  moo  ;  but  there  is  in  it  no  conso' 
jaantal  sound  whatever.  What  is  represented  by  the 
'«.  in  moo  is  a  kind  of  gulp.  A  beast  possibly  may, 
L.ut  no  beast  habitually  does,  produce  even  the  nasal 
semi-vowel  m. 

In  brief,  the  cries  of  all  beasts  are  vowel  cries. 
The  mouth  is  opened  before  the  sound  is  prepared, 
B,nd  it  comes  straight  from  the  throat,  without  any 
modification  —  that  is,  intentional  or  significant  modi' 
fication  —  by  tongue  or  lips.     A  beast  cannot  com- 


44  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

press  its  lips  closely  enough  to  make  even  the  sounds 
haa,  or  maa,  or  woo,  which  otherwise  might  be  made 
by  it  involuntarily  ;  and  as  to  an  intentional  use  of  the 
tongue  to  modify  its  vocal  utterance,  that  of  course 
is  out  of  the  question.  The  consonant  theiefore  re- 
mains as  a  distinguishing  characteristic  of  man. 

This  fact  seems  to  have  a  very  important  bearing 
upon  the  much-vexed  question  of  the  origin  of  lan- 
guage, —  a  question  which  has  provoked  so  much  very 
unsatisfactory  discussion,  combined  with  such  un- 
pleasant exhibitions  of  temper,  that  the  Soci^td  de 
Linguistique,  lately  established  in  Paris,  has  made 
it  one  of  its  statute  laws  that  no  paper  upon  the 
origin  of  language  shall  be  received  by  that  associa- 
tion. Where  there  is  such  conflict  of  opinions  among 
great  philologists,  and  where  hope  of  a  tenable  theory 
has,  by  some  of  the  most  eminent,  been  openly  aban- 
doned, it  would  be  more  than  presumption  in  me  to 
put  forth  a  theory  and  ask  for  its  acceptance.  But 
I  have  one  (if  so  simple  a  thing  can  be  called  a 
theory)  which  entirely  satisfies  myself,  and  there 
can  be  no  harm  in  my  telling  it  to  my  readers.  It 
is  this :  — 

Man  first  uttered  formless  vowel  sounds,  as  now  in 
early  infancy  or  in  idiocy,  that  prolonged  infancy  of 
the  mind,  he  utters  only  such  sounds.  These  sounds 
were  not  language,  hardly  more  than  the  cries  of 
beasts  are  language ;  but  still,  being  uttered  by  an 
intelligent  creature,  capable  of  "  discourse  of  reason," 
they  had  some  significance.  The  vowel  sounds  were 
in  the  course  of  time  interrupted,  modified,  and  sup- 
ported by  consonants,  without  which  vowels  cannot 
be  put  to  much  intelligent  or  significant  use.  Vocal 
utterance,  thus  made  articulate,  had  of  coui'se  di£Eer- 


CONSONANTS.  45 

ences ;  and  those  differences  came  naturally  and  in- 
evitably to  be  associated  with  things,  with  feelings, 
and  with  thoughts  ;  indeed,  were  born  of  such  asso- 
ciation. Thus  roots  were  formed.  Those  roots  were 
combined  and  modified  as  circumstances  required ; 
and  in  this  way  original  language,  or  perhaps  lan- 
guages, came  into  being.  When  this  took  place,  who 
would  venture  even  to  conjecture?  Who  knows,  or 
can  even  hope  to  know,  the  first  state  of  man  ?  As 
to  Sanskrit,  that  most  ancient  and  most  highly  elabo- 
rated form  of  human  speech  is  far  adown  the  ages ; 
and  even  the  language  from  which  Sanskrit  and  the 
other  Indo-European  languages  are  derived  repre- 
sents, we  may  be  sure,  a  progress  through  untold 
centuries  from  the  time  when  the  human  consonant 
turned  the  merely  animal  vowel  from  vague  noise 
into  intelligible  speech. 

That  is  the  simple  belief  as  to  the  origin  of  lan- 
guage which  I  shall  hold  until  some  great  philologist 
propounds  a  theory  which  all  the  other  great  philolo- 
gists shall  accept  without  dispute.  I  am  inclined  to 
the  opinion  that  should  I  live  to  the  age  of  Methuselah 
my  theoria  laid  will  not  be  disturbed. 

The  primitive  a  (all)  is  acknowledged  on  all  hands 
as  the  original  vowel  sound.  It  is  the  simplest  of 
all  vocal  utterances,  that  which  comes  without  con- 
scious effort  or  premeditation  from  man  and  child. 
The  first  consonant  was  probably  m,  that  which  we 
find  in  most  Indo-European  languages  combined  with 
the  first  vowel  in  a  word  which  expresses  the  earliest 
object  of  interest  to  the  human  creature, — mamma^ 
:he  female  breast, —  and  which  has  hence  become 
the  infant's  word  for  mother  almost  the  world  over. 
Doubtless  the  combination  was  first  in  a  single  sylla« 


46  E VERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

ble  ma;  but  reduplication  is  one  of  the  earliest  modes, 
perhaps  the  earliest  mode,  of  expressing  intensifica- 
tion of  interest. 

Mis,  not,  however,  to  be  regarded  as  the  first  con- 
Bonant  because  it  begins  the  word  that  is  the  first 
that  is  now  used  by  children ;  but  as  children  use  m 
first  because  it  is  the  easiest  and  the  simplest  means 
of  breaking  up  the  continuity  of  a  vowel  sound,  and 
giving  it  articulation,  it  is  probable  that  it  is  the 
first  that  was  heard.  The  mere  opening  and  closing 
of  the  mouth  during  the  utterance  of  the  ah  sound 
gives  wja  ov  mamma  ;  for  what  we  call  the  nasal  sound 
of  m  has  to  be  intentionally  avoided.  Children  now 
sometimes  reduplicate  this  indefinitely,  and  say  ma- 
mamamamama,  as  they  do  papapapapapa.  The  lim- 
itation of  either  word  to  a  single  reduplication  is  ar- 
bitrary and  conventional,  a  dictate  of  convenience. 
Some  linguists  regard  mamma  as  the  result  of  a 
childish  attempt  to  say  mother.  Surely  not.  The 
name  must  have  attached  itself  to  the  most  visible 
sign  and  token  of  motherhood,  and  then  to  the  moth- 
er, from  its  being  the  first  childish  effort  at  speech. 
Surely  mamma  long  preceded  the  earliest  form  of 
mother  or  mater. 

To  m  probably  succeeded  b  and  p,  which  are  so 
closely  related  to  m  that  they  are  mere  modifications 
of  it,  as  any  one  will  see  who  tries  a  few  experiments 
".n  the  production  of  these  three  consonants,  which 
are  produced  by  the  lips  alone,  and  are  therefore 
called  labials  ;  for  rh  can  be  sounded,  although  not; 
continuously,  with  the  nostrils  and  even  the  whole 
aose  held  tightly  closed.  The  first  use  of  the  tongue 
as  an  interruption  and  modifier  of  vowel  utterance 
probably  produced  d,  which  was  followed  by  t,  which 


CONSONANTS.  47 

\b  merely  a  stronger  d,  as  a  similar  experiment  will 
bIiow.  L  and  r  probably  soon  followed  ;  and  as  to 
the  order  ot  the  succession  of  the  other  consonants,  I 
shall  not  here  venture  an  opinion,  nor  does  our  pur- 
pose require  that  I  should  do  so. 

Consonants  are  very  fixed  in  their  pronunciation, 
as  to  which  in  various  words  there  is  little  dispute 
among  the  orthoepists  of  any  language  ;  but  those  of 
kindred  formation  do  have  a  tendency  to  run  into 
each  other,  as  m  into  b,  t  into  d,  and  r  into  I.  But 
while  the  tendency  of  vowels  is  to  change,  that  of 
consonants  is  to  stability.  Almost  all  languages  have 
almost  all  the  consonants  known  to  any  one  of  them ; 
a  remark  which,  however,  applies  chiefly  to  what 
may  be  called  the  primitive  consonants.  But,  for  ex- 
ample, the  Chinese  is  without  r,  for  which,  in  pro- 
nouncing foreign  words  in  which  it  occurs,  the  China- 
man is  obliged  to  substitute  ?,  and  say,  as  we  all  know, 
^llelican  for  American,  and  lide  for  ride  ;  and  many 
children  are  obliged  to  do  the  same.  These  facts 
favor  the  supposition  that  r  is  a  consonant  sound  of 
later  formation  than  l.  On  the  contrary,  however,  the 
Japanese  find  the  sound  of  Z  a  difficult  one  to  make, 
and  substitute  for  it  that  of  r.  We  may  at  least  rea- 
sonably suppose  that  these  two  consonants  are  the 
last  and  most  difficult  attainments  of  human  speech. 

I  now  turn  to  Professor  Whitney's  remarks  upon 
the  consonantal  sounds  and  combinations  in  the  Eng- 
lish language,  as  to  which,  however,  little  is  to  be 
said  except  in  praise  of  his  patient  and  minute  obser- 
vation of  the  manner  in  which  the  sounds  are  formed, 
and  of  the  intelligible  style  in  which  he  sets  forth 
his  conclusions.  If  speech  is  to  be  treated  in  such  a 
^ray  (and,  like  the  cardinal,   '  I  do  not  see  the  neces* 


48  EVERY  -DAY   ENGLISH. 

Bity  "),  the  results  of  such  in\  estigatious  could  hardly 
be  presented  in  a  form  more  likely  to  interest  an  in- 
telligent reader  not  bitten  with  the  monomania  of 
phonetics  than  that  in  which  Professor  Whitney  has 
presented  them.  Much  of  this  sort  of  work,  I  frankly 
own,  seems  to  me  laborious  trifling.  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  following  passage,  which,  it  will  be  seen, 
refers  to  the  phonetic  opinions  of  others  than  Pro- 
fessor Whitney :  — 

"  Some  phonetists  claim  that  to  make  a  whole  p,  for  ex- 
ample, both  a  closure  and  a  breach  [of  the  lips]  are  required, 

—  thus,  apa,  —  either  ap  or  pa  being  only  a  half  or  incom- 
plete utterance ;  others,  again,  claim  that  ap  is  complete 
and  pa  is  complete,  and  so  that  apa  is  really  double,  and 
ought  (I  infer)  to  be  written  appa,  a  single  mute  between 
vowels  being  an  impossibility ;  but  I  see  no  sufficient 
ground  for  either  opinion. 

''  It  is  again  asserted  by  some  (notably  by  Lepsius)  that 
our  usual  p,  t,  k,  are  not  simple  mutes,  but  rather  aspirates, 

—  that  is  to  say,  that  a  bit  of  breath,  a  brief  //,  is  slipped 
out  between  the  breach  of  mute  contact  and  the  beginning 
of  a  following  vowel  or  other  more  open  sound.  This  I 
ehould  confidently  rely  on  as  far  as  our  ordinary  pronuncia- 
tion is  concerned." 

And  what  matter  if  either  opinion  in  either  case 
is  true  or  false?  Of  what  moment  is  it,  as  regards 
language  or  pronunciation,  whether  the  consonant 
sound  in  ajja  is  single  or  double,  or  whether  a  "  bit 
of  breath  "  slips  out  after  p,  t,  and  k,  or  not  ?  I  rank 
such  discussions  with  those  as  to  whether  certain 
words  are  jDrepositions,  or  adverbs,  or  conjunctions 
whether  they  are  one  or  another  being,  it  seems  tc 
Vie,  of  the  least  possible  consequence. 

I  may  be  pardoned,  perhaps,  for  expressing  my  re» 


CONSONANTS.  49 

gret,  by  the  way,  that  Professor  Whitney  should  give 
the  support  of  his  example  to  such  a  use  of  claim  as 
appeal's  twice  in  one  of  the  sentences  just  quoted  : 
"  Some  phonetists  claim  that  to  make  a  whole  p" 
etc. ;  "  others,  again,  claim  that  ap  is  complete."  An 
intelligent  and  highly  cultivated  Englishman  said 
lately,  in  my  hearing,  that  "  the  American  people 
have  claim  on  the  brain."  The  gibe  seemed  to  me 
to  be  fully  justified.^  Of  late  years  this  word  has 
come  to  be  used  among  us  in  a  very  queer  way  as  a 
word  of  all  work.  If  a  man  asserts  anything,  he 
"  claims  "  it ;  if  he  disputes  anything,  he  "  claims  " 
the  contrary ;  if  he  suggests  anything,  he  "  claims  " 
it ;  if  he  defends  his  reputation,  he  "  claims  that "  he 
is  an  honest  man ;  if  he  denounces  a  political  oppo- 
nent, he  "  claims  that "  "  his  record  "  is  disgraceful, 
and  perhaps  "claims  that"  his  grandfather  was  a 
Tory  in  the  Revolution,  or  he  "  claims  that "  his 
grand-aunt  was  no  better  than  she  should  be ;  if  he  is 
a  scientific  man,  he  "claims  that"  Darwin  has  estab- 
lished the  theory  of  evolution  ;  if  a  theologian,  he 
"claims  that"  Darwin,  Huxley,  and  Tyndall  are 
emissaries  of  Satan,  —  and  so  forth,  and  so  forth  ;  for 
there  is  no  end  to  the  variety  of  this  use,  or  rather 
misuse,  of  the  word.  A  man  may  claim,  or  demand, 
his  own,  —  a  thing,  an  interest,  or  a  promise ;  but 
not  that  a  thing,  or  a  fact,  or  a  person  is  thus  or  so. 
The  contamination  of  evil  speaking  corrupts  good 
English  ;  and  when  it  taints  the  vocabulary  of  a  phi- 
lologist like  Professor  Whitney,  what  may  not  be  par- 
doned to  the  rest  of  us,  poor  laymen  in  language ! 
Professor  Whitney  calls  these  three  "  mutes,"  j3,  t, 

1  I  could,  however,  produce  examples  ivjn  of  "claim  that"  from  Brif 
ilh  pablicatious  of  high  rank. 
4 


50  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

and  ^,  "  surds,"  a  name  which,  he  tells  us,  "  is  in- 
tended to  describe  them  as  produced  without  any 
tone,  any  sonorous  vibration  of  the  vocal  cords."  He 
insists  strongly  upon  the  use  of  "surd"  and  "so- 
nant," and  says  that  to  call  the  consonants  in  ques- 
tion ''  '  hard,'  or  '  sharp,'  or  'strong,'  or  by  any  ofchei 
Buch  scientifically  inaccurate  and  merely  fanciful  or 
blundering  title,  is  altogether  to  be  condemned." 
The  terms  "  strong  "  or  *•'  hard  "  and  "  soft  "  oi 
"  weak,"  he  says,  "  began  in  ignorance,  and  are  con- 
tinued in  heedless  imitation  or  in  misapprehension." 
This  is  rather  severe  treatment  of  terms  which  are  in 
favor  with  the  most  eminent  phonologists,  —  even,  as 
Professor  Whitney  admits,  the  greatest  German  phi- 
lologists ;  but  if  the  terms  are  really  as  meaningless 
and  as  misleading  as  he  strenuously  asserts  that  they 
are,  his  condemnation  of  them  may  be  quite  justifi 
able. 

Not  professing  to  treat  the  subject  with  what  Pro- 
fessor Whitney  calls  scientific  accuracy,  but  merely 
to  present  to  my  readers  the  results  of  such  observa- 
tions as  I  have  made  upon  it,  I  venture  to  say  that 
to  me  the  terms  "hard"  or  "strong,"  "soft"  or 
"weak,"  seem  to  be  so  very  truly  descriptive  that  I 
do  not  wonder  that  the  great  German  philologists  and 
others  cling  to  them.  The  question,  indeed,  is  one  of 
fact  more  than  of  terminology.  It  is  simply  whether 
the  difference  between  p  and  h,  and  between  t  and 
c?,  is  a  difference  between  strength  and  weakness. 
It  seems  to  me  without  doubt  to  be  so  ;  but  not  of 
strength  and  weakness  in  the  sense  of  force  and  fee' 
bleness  of  utterance,  as  Professor  Whitney  seems  to 
imply.  For  when  a  shipmaster  shouts,  "  Port  your 
belum  !  "  or,  "  Haul  down  !  Taut  and  belay  !  "  his  y'*9 


CONSONANTS.  51 

and  i's,  c?'s  and  f  s,  are,  indeed,  easily  distinguished, 
but  no  more  easily  thari  those  of  a  school-girl  who  is 
whispering  slyly  to  her  neighbor.  The  point  is  this : 
jt)  and  h  are  formed  by  the  same  or  by  a  like  action 
of  the  lips  ;  t  and  d  by  the  same  or  by  a  like  action 
of  the  tongue ;  the  lips  and  the  tongue  producing  in 
each  a  perfect  closure  of  utterance.  The  difference 
between  them  is,  to  the  ears  of  those  whose  usage 
Professor  Whitney  derides,  a  softening  of  the  former 
—  in  character,  not  in  force  of  sound  —  into  tlie 
latter.  This  softening  is  unavoidably  accompanied, 
perhaps  is  caused,  by  a  slight  laryngeal  murmur; 
but  none  the  less  does  it  seem  accurately  descriptive 
to  say  that  p  and  t  are  "softened"  into  b  and  c?,  or 
vice  versa,  that  p  and  t  are  "  hard  "  b  and  d.  This 
Professor  Whitney  himself  seems  to  admit  when  he 
subsequently  says :  "  The  b  sound  then  is  the  sonant 
counterpart  of  the  p,  identical  with  it  in  the  position 
of  the  mouth  organs,  differing  only  in  the  laryngeal 
action  ;  "  adding  the  like  as  to  d  and  t. 

In  referring  to  g  as  "  the  intonated  k  "  Professor 
Whitney  makes  the  former  letter  the  sign  only  of 
what  is  known  as  the  hard  sound  of  g;  the  soft  g 
be  regards  as/.  In  this  he  is  not  singular.  But  con- 
sidering that  in  the  languages  of  Continental  Europe 
y  represents  the  English  y  sound,  and  that  g  in  the 
same  languages  so  largely  represents  the  English  j 
Bound,  it  should  seem  that  the  correctness  of  this 
limitation  of  g  to  the  sounds  of  intonated  k  may  at 
least  be  doubtful.  The  sounds  of  g  hard  and  g  soft 
are  not  only  so  different,  but  are  formed  by  such  a 
very  different  action  of  the  vocal  organs,  that  the  use 
of  the  same  character  to  indicate  them  is  not  easily 
accounted  for.     The  sound  of  g  hard  is  produced  by 


62  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

pressing  the  lower-middle  part  of  the  tongue  firmly 
against  the  roof  of  the  mouth  and  then  drawing  it 
suddenly  away  with  a  guttural  expulsion  of  breath. 
The  soft  g^  or  English  /,  sound  is  formed  chiefly  by 
the  teeth  assisted  by  the  tip  of  the  tongue.  The  tip 
of  the  tongue  is  pressed  tightly  against  the  extreme 
front  of  the  palate,  and  then  as  it  is  withdrawn  the 
breath  is  driven  out  between  the  gradually  opening 
teeth.  Neither  the  two  actions  nor  the  two  conse- 
quent sounds  pass  into  each  other ;  nor  are  they  in 
any  way  modifications  the  one  of  the  other.  I  believe 
that  there  is  no  uncertainty  as  to  the  sound  of  g^  or 
any  mispronunciation  of  it  which  calls  for  remark,  ex- 
cept in  the  word  suggest^  in  which  the  first  g  is  hard 
and  the  second  soft,  as  in  succeed  the  first  c  is  hard 
and  the  second  soft.  But  not  a  few  educated  people 
fall  into  the  habit  of  pronouncing  both  ^'s  soft  in  the 
former,  —  sujjest  instead  of  sugjest.  In  doing  this 
there  is  great  peril  of  falling  at  last  into  the  slough 
of  s'jest. 

I  venture  also  to  question  the  accuracy  of  the  as- 
sertion that  "  the  d  is  nearly  related  to  the  I  and  r, 
all  being  alike  tongue-point  letters  ;  a  relaxation  of 
the  contact  at  the  tip  of  the  tongue  converts  the  d 
into  r;  a  like  relaxation  at  the  side  or  sides  of  the 
tongue  converts  it  into  an  I.  All,  especially  the  I  and 
-,  interchange  frequently  in  the  history  of  language.*' 
This  seems  to  be  a  somewhat  too  mechanical  view  of 
the  subject.  That  the  point  of  the  tongue  has  some- 
thing.to  do  with  the  formation  of  the  sounds  of  all  these 
letters  is  true.  But  the  essential  vocal  characters  of  d 
and  r  are  as  different  as  those  of  two  vowels  can  be 
The  essential  characteristic  of  d  is  perfect  closui'e  and 
jnterruption,  followed  by  sudden  relaxation  and  pai 


CONSONANTS.  63 

aage  of  the  pure  vowel  sound  ;  that  of  r  is  non-closure, 
no  relaxation,  but  a  continued  passage  of  the  vowel 
Bound  accompanied  by  a  trill.  In  d  the  tip  of  the 
tongue  is  pressed  firmly  against  the  roof  of  the  mouth, 
just  above  the  teeth  ;  in  r  the  jaw  is  dropped,  and  the 
tip  of  the  tongue  does  not  even  approach  the  teeth, 
but  plays  freely  in  the  full  cavity  of  the  mouth. 
This  great  mechanical  difference  is,  however,  of  im- 
portance from  my  point  of  view  only  as  it  accompa- 
nies two  sounds  so  absolutely  unlike  as  those  of  d 
and  r. 

In  connection  with  the  "  palatal  mutes,"  Professor 
Whitney  remarks  the  ease  with  which  the  y  sound  is 
inserted  after  them,  and  says,  "  One  of  the  latest 
downward  steps  in  English  orthoepy  has  been  the  in- 
trusion of  this  y  sound  after  k  and  g  in  a  not  very 
large  class  of  words  by  a  certain  part  of  the  commu- 
nity." He  cites  as  examples  ¥md^  guards  }*nd  girl., 
pronounced  k-yind,  g-yard^  and  g-yurl.  I  do  not 
know  what  limit  is  implied  in  Professor  W  ^litney's 
term  "  latest ;  "  but  the  pronunciation  to  whicK  he  re- 
fers is  at  least  two  centuries  old,  and  is  still  ij  ^  vogue 
among  the  best  English  speakers.  According  ^o  my 
observation,  no  high-bred,  well-educated  Englishman 
pronounces  girl  gurl,  any  more  than  he  pronomcea 
duke  dook.  Nor  does  he,  on  the  other  hand,  si-j  ge- 
yurl,  de-yook.  That  is  the  vocal  sign  of  pincl  beck 
passing  itself  for  gold,  and  well  deserves  Prot'^ssor 
Whitney's  denunciation  as  "  particularly  affected  und 
disagreeable."  But  there  is  in  the  best  English  pro- 
hunciation  a  delicate  softening  of  the  hard  conta  %  of 
g  and  k  and  d  upon  the  succeeding  vowel,  a  kird  Df 
rocal  buffer  of  extremest  tenuity,  which,  to  my  ear,  is 
the  very  reverse  of  disagreeable.     And  so  far  is  t'vi» 


54  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

Utterance  from  being  a  late  downward  step,  that,  on 
the  contrary,  it  is  a  little  evanescent  grace  of  speech 
which  is  beginning  to  pass  away.^ 

In  his  remarks  upon  th  Professor  Whitney  saya 
that  the  orthoepic  manuals  are  obliged  to  point  out 
the  right  sound  in  each  case  and  insist  upon  its  ob- 
Bei  vance,  and  that  "  they  tell  us  we  must  give  the  so- 
nant sound  [soft,  as  in  the,  theni]  in  baths,  oaths,  moths, 
mouths,  sheaths,  and  many  more,  and  must  give  the 
Burd  [hai'd,  as  in  thin,  thic¥\  in  cloths,  truths,  youths, 
and  a  few  others."  As  to  the  prescriptions  of  or- 
thoepic manuals,  I  am  comparatively  uninformed  ;  but 
should  I  find  in  one  of  them  instruction  to  pronounce 
truths  and  youths  with  the  th  as  in  th'm,  it  would  go 
far  with  me  to  discredit  the  work  as  a  trustworthy 
record  of  the  best  English  pronunciation  of  this  gen- 
eration. I  cannot  remember  to  have  heard,  surely  I 
never  heard  from  a  speaker  from  whom  the  best  pro- 
nunciation was  to  be  looked  for,  those  words  pro- 
nounced otherwise  than  with  the  soft  th,  as  in  this. 
The  singular  forms  truth  and  youth  have  th  as  in 
thin.  As  to  cloths,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  a  dis- 
tinction is  made  by  pronunciation  between  cloths  in 
bulk  and  cloths  made  up  for  wearing  ;  the  former 
having  the  hard  sound  and  the  latter  the  soft,  and  be- 
ing (now)  written  clothes,  although  they  are  really 
but  the  same  word. 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  the  old  English  let- 
ter 5  for  this  sound  was  allowed   to  fall  out  of   use. 

1  Walker  (1791)  says,  "When  this  [the  letter?]  is  preceded  by  hard  g 
fr  h,  which  is  but  another  form  for  hard  c,  it  is  pronounced  as  if  an  e  wore 
tiserted  between  the  consonant  and  tiie  vowel.  Thus  shy,  kind,  (jnide, 
ffuise,  disguise,  guile,  beguile,  mankind  are  pronounced  as  if  written  ske-y 
te-in4«,  gue-ide,  etc.,  etc."  (Principles  of  English  Pronunciation,  §  160. 
The  same  pronunciation  is  mentioned  by  Steele  in  his  Grammar  of  tht 
Enyliih  Tont/ue.  1720,  page  49. 


CONSONANTS.  55 

The  soiiml  is  not  at  all  a  compound  of  those  of  t  and 
h,  by  uniting  which  we  indicate  it.  It  is  a  perfect l}! 
Biinple  sound,  as  much  as  that  of  s  is ;  and  it  would 
be  well  if  the  philologists  who  are  undertaking  to 
simplify  our  spelling  would  advocate  the  restoration 
of  our  old  English  letter  for  this  (among  modern  lan- 
guages) peculiarly  English  sound.  There  would  be 
no  difficulty,  or  very  little,  about  bringing  it  grad- 
ually into  vogue  and  into  favor. 

In  regard  to  the  z  sound  (not  the  pronunciation  of 
s),  Professor  Whitney  remarks  that  "  a  considerable 
share  of  our  2's  are  comparatively  recent  corruptions 
of  the  s  sound  ;  "  and  he  adds  that  the  change  is 
going  on  actively,  and  that  consequently  there  are 
many  words,  and  even  whole  classes  of  words,  in  re- 
gard to  which  usage  is  unsettled.  His  own  pro- 
nunciation, he  tells  us,  adheres  to  the  older  s  sound  ; 
and  he  says  dls-ahle^  dis-hatid,  dis-dain,  dis-gust,  dis- 
honest, dis-miss,  dis-ohlige.,  dis-robe,  etc.,  with  a  real 
8  ;  but  not  dis-cern,  dis-ease,  dissolve.  In  this  pro- 
nunciation it  seems  to  me  that  Professor  Whitney 
conforms  precisely  to  the  best  English  usage,  and 
that  his  implied  censure  of  the  dizzi/  pronunciation  is 
fully  justified.  I  do  not  remember  having  heard  the 
latter  from  speakers  of  good  English,  —  except  rarely 
in  disgust  and  dishonest  (^dizgust,  dizonest).  This 
(the  s  sound)  I  find  is  the  pronunciation  given  by  the 
last,  and  what  I  have  found  to  be  the  most  trust- 
worthy, English  authority,  —  Phelp,  in  Stormonth's 
dictionary,  —  who,  even  in  disgust  and  dishonest, 
gives  the  simple  sound  of  s.  But  when  Professor 
Whitney  says,  as  to  the  combination  of  e  with  x,  that 
ue  believes  there  is  not  a  single  word  in  which  he 
pronounces   ex  as   egz,  "  without  an  efifort  specially 


56  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

directed  to  that  end,"  I  cannot  hesitate  a  moment  in 
saying  that  his  pronunciation  is,  according  to  my  ob- 
eervation,  peculiar  to  him  among  men  of  his  culture 
and  position.  By  my  teacher  (like  him  a  Yankee 
born  and  bred)  I  was  taught  to  pronounce  the  unac- 
cented ex  (as  in  example,  exert)  as  egz  ;  and  among 
those  from  whom  I  caught  my  speech  at  home  (also 
Yankees  born  and  bred)  I  heard  the  same  sound. 
Phelp  gives  this  pronunciation  as  that  of  to-day;  and 
as  to  the  "  novelty  "  of  it,  Walker,  writing  in  1791, 
says,  "  X.  has  its  flat  sound  like  gz  when  the  accent 
is  not  on  it  and  the  following  syllable  begins  with 
a  vowel ;  "  and  my  grandfather,  who  graduated  at 
Yale  in  1786,  pronounced  the  ex  thus  ;  and  as  he 
must  have  caught  the  sound  from  his  father  or  in  his 
father's  house,  this  is  pretty  good  evidence  that  it 
antedated  Walker  a  full  half-century. 

I  see  no  occasion  for  further  remark  upon  Pro- 
fessor Whitney's  records  of  English  pronunciation  ; 
and  in  what  I  have  made  them  the  occasion  of  saying, 
I  trust  that  there  has  been  not  a  word  which  expressed 
on  my  part  other  than  the  fullest"  recognition  of  the 
value  of  his  labors,  —  valuable  even  in  this  minor 
field  of  linguistic  study,  —  or  which  failed  in  the 
expression  of  personal  respect.  In  real  philology  I 
should  no  moi'e  think  of  measuring  swords  with  him 
than  a  West  Point  cadet  should  think  of  doing  the 
like  with  Sherman  or  Von  Moltke  in  war ;  but  the 
subject  of  pronunciation  is  one  upon  which  a  student 
of  his  mother  tongue,  who  has  found  that  he  may 
trust  his  ear  and  his  memory,  may  without  any  such 
pretense  offer  the  results  of  his  observation. 


CHAPTER  rV. 

)BTHOEPY  AND   ORTHOGRAPHY.  —  SPELLING-BOOK 
SPEECH. 

In  a  dictionary  intended  to  meet  the  popular  de- 
mand for  a  hand-book  which  shall  be  a  guide  to  the 
correct  use  of  words,  pronunciation  is  regarded  as  an 
element  of  prime  importance.  And  yet  much  might 
be  said  against  the  introduction  of  this  department 
into  lexicography,  which  took  place  about  a  hundred 
years  ago. 

One  of  the  objections  that  lie  against  pronouncing 
dictionaries  is  manifest  upon  a  comparison  of  Perry's 
Standard  English  Dictionary,  published  at  London  in 
1777,  and  Walker's  Critical  Pronouncing  Dictionary, 
published  also  at  London  in  1791,  both  of  which 
profess  to  give  the  usage  of  the  best  English  society 
at  that  time.  For  although  they  were  published 
within  so  few  years  of  each  other  that  the  pronuncia- 
tion which  they  profess  to  record  must  have  been  the 
Bame,  they  differ  in  many  instances.  Moreover,  there 
is  the  almost  insuperable  difficulty  of  expressing  with 
any  great  degree  of  certainty  the  sounds  and  inflec- 
tions of  words  as  they  are  uttered  in  daily  conversa- 
tion ;  for  those  sounds  and  inflections  are  in  many  in- 
stances so  delicate  in  their  character  that  they  cannot 
even  be  described,  much  less  expressed  exactly  and 
unmistakably  by  letters,  or  by  other  arbitrary  signs. 
We  are  sent  from  word  to  word,  and  from  word  to 


58  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

sign,  and  from  sign  to  word,  on  the  assumption  that 
certain  signs,  or  at  least  certain  familiar  words,  will 
surely  indicate  to  us  certain  sounds.  The  probability 
is  that  they  will  do  so  in  most  cases ;  but  it  is  also 
probable  that  in  many  cases  they  will  not.  The  re- 
sult is  a  mere  circle  of  uncertainty  ;  except,  indeed^ 
in  regard  to  accent,  as  to  which,  of  course,  usage  may 
be  recorded  or  change  advocated  with  understanding 
and  precision. 

Striking  examples  in  illustration  of  the  difficulty 
of  expressing  and  of  fixing  pronunciation  are  fur- 
nished in  a  very  interesting  and  instructive  article,  by 
Prof.  F.  W.  Newman,  upon  English  as  spoken  and 
written,  which  appeared  in  the  "  Contemporary  Re- 
view," March,  1878.  The  main  purpose  of  the  writer 
is  the  consideration  of  the  question  of  a  change  in  Eng- 
lish orthography.  But  in  the  course  of  his  article  he 
makes  revelations  and  advances  opinions  in  regard  to 
pronunciation  itself  which  are  of  much  interest,  both 
intrinsically  and  by  way  of  suggestion. 

Professor  Newman's  early  education  and  the  asso- 
ciations of  his  long  life,  quite  as  much  as  his  acquire- 
ments and  the  nature  of  his  studies,  make  his  remarks 
upon  English  pronunciation  of  greater  value  than 
those  of  almost  any  other  English  man  of  letters  would 
be ;  and  they  are  none  the  less  so,  but  rather  the 
more,  because,  although  an  observant  student  of  lan- 
guage, he  is  not  a  professed  philologist  or  phonolo- 
gist,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  committed  to  any  school 
or  crotchet,  or  to  be  subject  to  that  perversion  of  the 
judgment  with  which  the  specialist  is  so  commonly 
and  not  unnaturally  afflicted.  What  he  gives  us  is 
the  knowledge  and  the  opinion  of  a  highly  educated 
man,  who  acqu'red  his  pronunciation  in  London  and 


ORTHOEPY  AND  ORTHOGRAPHY.         69 

at  Oxford,  and  who  has  all  his  life  been  accustomed 
to  the  society  of  the  best  bred  and  most  highly  cul- 
tivated English  society.^  Yet  it  will  appear,  I  think, 
that  even  sucii  a  man  may  err  as  to  the  best  usage 
in  English  speech,  and  that  the  reasons  of  his  err6r 
bear  very  significantly  upon  both  orthoeijy  and  pho- 
netic spelling. 

In  showing  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  making  a 
change  in  written  English,  Professor  Newman  first 
calls  attention  to  the  very  obtrusive  fact  of  the  un- 
certainty of  English  pronunciation.  "  Small  indeed," 
lie  says,  "  is  the  shifting  in  orthography  compared 
to  the  innovations  in  utterance,  especially  in  a  coun- 
try which  has  many  provincial  dialects,  and  no  pub- 
lic schools  in  which  uniformity  of  pronunciation  is 
cultivated.  It  is  owing  to  the  change  in  pronunci- 
ation while  orthography  has  been  almost  fixed  that 
there  is  greater  difference  between  written  and  spoken 
English  than  there  was  three  centuries  ago.^  It  is 
for  this  reason,  and  because  of  the  assimilating  and 
trait-destroying  tendencies  of  slovenly  speech,  that, 
for  example,  the  same  sound  has  come  to  be  the  ex- 
pression of  four  such  different  thoughts  and  things 

1  Professor  Newman's  brother  is  the  Rev.  J.  H.  Newman,  now  cardinal, 
who  is  regarded  by  some  persons  as  the  best  living  writer  of  English  ;  an 
uppreciatioii  of  him  which,  although  it  may  not  be  without  some  reason, 
implies  a  degree  of  positive  merit  in  his  style  which  I  have  not  been  able  to 
discover. 

2  I  doubt,  I  more  than  doubt,  that  this  greater  difference  can  rightly  be 
Raid  to  exist.  For  in  the  first  place,  to  sav  that  the  difference  between 
Miund  and  sign  is  greater  now  than  it  was  tiien  implicitly  asserts  a  fixed, 
continuous  value  in  the  sign.  This  begs  the  question.  Next,  granting 
that  we  can  determine  the  value  of  the  sign  —  the  letters,  — I  am  inclined 
to  believe  that  variation  between  sound  and  sign  was  quite  as  great  thea 
»8  it  is  now,  if  not  greater  than  it  is  now;  one  reason  of  which  is  that  pro- 
ounciation  was  then  less  nearly  uniform  But  the  question  is  ao  intricate 
tae,  and  it  being  not  essential  to  our  purpose,  I  pass  it  by. 


30  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

as  rite,  right,  write,  and  wright ;  so  also  as  to  soul 
and  sole.  The  reader  may  easily  call  to  mind  others. 
Now,  one  question  is,  Shall  we,  for  the  convenience 
of  children  and  foreigners,  increase  and  multiply  and 
aggravate  this  undesirable  uniformity  of  name  for 
widely  distinct  ideas,  by  destroying  the  written  rec- 
ord of  their  difference  ?  " 

If  a  change  in  spelling  is  to  be  made,  one  point 
must  be  previously  settled,  —  the  pronunciation  which 
the  new  spelling  is  to  represent.  What  is  the  right 
pronunciation  of  any  given  word,  and  how  shall  it 
be  expressed  ?  This  position  taken  by  Professor  New- 
man 1  the  blindest  and  most  headlong  advocates  of 
phonographic  spelling  cannot  have  the  hardihood  to 
deny.  It  is  from  his  consideration  of  our  subject  in 
this  aspect  that  Professor  Newman's  paper  has  its 
peculiar  value  and  interest. 

What,  then,  he  asks  in  the  beginning,  are  we  to 
do  with  grant,  command,  grass,  task,  and  other  like 
words,  the  correct  pronunciation  of  which  he  holds 
to  be  with  the  a  broad,  while  a  pronunciation  of  them 
with  the  a  short,  as  in  an,  "  appears  to  be  in  London 
current  and  fashionable"  ?  I  will  remark  in  passing 
that  at  Oxford  and  at  Cambridge  I  heard  with  pleas- 
ure the  long  and  broad  pronunciation  of  these  words 
by  the  young  men  as  well  as  by  the  old.  It  was  not 
merely  the  broad,  but  not  very  long,  a  which  I  had 
Deen  accustomed  to,  but  a  full  ah,  —  eommahnd,  grahss, 
pahst,  etc.  Yet  for  the  conjunction  no  one  said  ahnd, 
which  was  doubtless  the  old  pronunciation,  but  and, 
with  the  a  as  in  an.  Similar  irregularities  are  not 
uncommon  in  English. 

^  And  not  new,  I  may  be  permitted  to  say,  to  my  readers  of  the  patf 
light  or  ten  years. 


ORTHOEPY   AND   ORTHOGRAPHY.  61 

Professor  Newman  next  brings  up  the  suppression 
3f  r  at  the  end  of  a  syllable  or  before  a  consonant. 
'*  Thus,"  he  says,  "  lord^  hard,  door,  lorn,  pore,  pork, 
are  sounded  laud,  haad,  daiv,  lawn,  paw,  pawh,  if  I 
am  rightl}'^  informed;  arm^  and  alr)is  are  alike  cor- 
rupted into  aams^  As  to  this  pronunciation,  it  is  to 
be  remembered  that  in  the  formation  of  speech  the 
letter  r  was  probably  the  last  to  be  developed  ;  that 
it  is,  of  all  English  sounds  at  least,  the  most  difficult 
of  utterance,  that  which  requires  the  most  flexibility 
of  the  vocal  organs  and  the  most  correct  habit  of 
speech,  and  therefore  it  is  the  letter  most  likely  to 
be  dropped  by  the  ignorant,  the  slovenly,  and  the 
languid.  He  also  notices  the  dropping  of  h  in  words 
like  which  and  white  and  wheel  and  whistle,  which  is 
BO  common  in  England  that  a  record  of  it  as  the  cor- 
rect pronunciation  has  crept  into  one  or  two  diction- 
aries. This  confounding  of  which  with  witch  and 
wheel  with  weal  Professor  Newman  condemns,  and 
rightly  ;  but  it  is  very  common  in  England,  even 
among  the  best  bred  and  best  educated  people.  A 
man  who  will  say  commaAnd  and  lord  will  yet  say 
witch  for  which.  This  corrupt  sounding  of  ivh  as  mere 
w.  Professor  Newman  says,  "  damages  at  least  seven- 
teen root  words,  and  surely  ought  to  be  rebuked  as 
Bharpl}?^  as  the  perversion  of  horse,  hand,  hedge,  hill, 
into  orse,  and,  edge,  ill^  This  protest  may  not  be 
philological ;  for  the  business,  or  the  chief  business, 
of  the  philologist  is  merely  to  record  and  to  trace 
usage ;  but  it  is  the  voice  of  common  sense  and  good 
taste.  A  slovenly  utterance  which  damages  root 
words  is  not  to  be  accepted  without  resistance,  or  at 
least  without  protest.  The  suppression  of  h  in  wh  is, 
he  says,  "  an  especial  disgrace  of  Southern  England." 


'32  E VERY-DAY    r:NGLISH. 

The  constant  question,  then,  here  recurs.  If  we  are 
to  print  our  books  with  phonetic  spelling,  are  we  to 
spell  lohifJi  or  witch,  and  which  is  witch,  and  is  witch 
which  ?  Professor  Newman  tells  us  that  his  school- 
master "  sounded  the  tv  in  whole.''''  Should  any  reader 
think  such  a  pronunciation  strange  or  difficult,  let 
him  say  wh}'  it  is  more  strange  or  difficult  to  pro- 
nounce the  IV  in  whole  than  to  do  so  in  ivhirl  and  in 
whistle,  which  is  done  by  all  educated  "  Americans  " 
and  by  the  best  speakers  in  England.  If  it  is  sounded 
in  these  words,  why  should  it  be  silent  in  that  ?  To 
distinguish  whole  from  hole,  otherwise  than  by  the 
delicate  difference  which  good  speakers  make  between 
the  length  (not  in  the  sound)  of  the  vowel  in  the 
two  words,  is  certainly  an  advantage.  His  teacher's 
pronunciation  of  whole  suggests  to  Professor  Newman 
two  small  corrections  which  he  regards  as  needed  in 
orthography  :  "  First,  we  ought  to  write  wholely  (just 
as  solely,  vilely^  so  as  to  secure  the  sounding  of  the 
double  I ;  next,  in  the  unseemly  word  whore,  we 
ought  to  omit  the  to,  which  is  a  stupid,  causeless  ad- 
dition. Wickliffe  writes  hore.  Wholly  ought  not  to 
rhyme  with  holy.''''  As  to  the  last  point,  it  is  to  be 
remarked  that  the  rhyme,  although  permissible  in 
verse,  is  not  absolutely  perfect,  any  more  than  that  of 
ivhole  with  liole.  The  o  in  wholly  is  shorter  and  a 
little  less  open  than  that  in  holy. 

In  the  names  of  places  and  of  men,  according  to 
Professor  Newman,  "  the  sound  ought  to  be  in  close 
harmony  with  the  writing.  If  we  write  Berwick, 
Dulwich,  Keswick,  Greenwich,  and  Norwich,  we 
ought  to  sound  the  iv,  and  vice  versa.''^  Therefore, 
since  no  one,  as  he  reasonably  assumes,  would  favor 
fche  vitiating  of  historical  records  by  omitting  the  w 


ORTHOEPY  AND  ORTHOGRAPHY.         63 

be  decides  thiit  the  w  should  be  sounded.  But  would 
he  really  have  us  call  Norwich  Nor-witch?  If  so, 
what  is  to  become  of  that  time-honored  epic,  — 

"The  man  in  the  moon 

Came  down  too  soon, 
And  ask'd  his  way  to  Norwich  ; 

He  went  by  the  south, 

And  burnt  his  mouth 
With  eating  cold  pease-porridge." 

Plainly  the  pronunciation  Noricli  is  of  a  very  re- 
spectable antiquity.  And  Professor  Newman  may  be 
sure  that  an  act  of  Parliament  and  an  act  of  Congress 
together  could  not  bring  back  the  pronunciation  Nor- 
witch.  Such  contractions  are  inevitable,  and  are  not 
objectionable.  Through  them  comes  to  speech  a  free- 
dom and  ease  which  cannot  be  given  up  for  the  sake 
of  a  literal  conformity  of  sound  to  sign.  Professor 
Newman  himself  yields  the  iv  "  in  rapid  and  familiar 
speech,"  but  insists  on  it,  and  on  a  like  particularity 
of  pronunciation,  in  all  serious  or  formal  reading  or 
speaking.  "  So,"  he  suggests,  "  we  tolerate  tuppence 
for  two  pence,  but  not  in  the  parable  of  the  Good  Sa- 
maritan." 

But  what  Parliament  and  Congress  could  not  effect 
may  be  brought  about,  I  fear,  by  the  unnatural  and 
monstrous  way  of  learning  to  speak  by  the  spelling- 
book  ;  for  not  only  is  Delhi  in  New  York  called 
by  some  persons  Dell-high,  but  Warwick  is  called 
War-wick,  and  Tivoli  Tio-oh-lie  ;  but  the  best  speak- 
ers say  Daily,  Warick  (with  the  accent  on  the  first 
syllable),  Tiv-o-le. 

One  remark  made  by  him  in  connection  with  this 
jubject  seems'  strangely  amiss.  He  says  that  "  in 
the  town  of  Derby  its  name  is  sounded  as  it  is  spelt, 
while  the  aristocracy  call  it  DarhyT    As  to  the  lat- 


64  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

fcer  point,  there  is  no  doubt;  but  he  quotes  with  ap 
proval  the  remark  of  an  old  hidy,  made  to  him  in  hia 
boyhood  :  "  They  have  learned  from  their  grooms  to 
Bay  Darby  and  BarksTiire.''''  But  the  old  lady  was 
wrong;  and  that  she  was  so,  Professor  Newman  him- 
self would  have  seen  upon  a  little  reflection.  For  it 
is  not  possible  that  he  should  be  ignorant  that  the 
syllable  written  er  was,  until  a  compai'atively  recent 
day,  sounded  ar,  and  even  is  now  so  sounded  in  other 
words  than  proper  names. 

In  the  days  of  our  grandfathers  clerk  was  univer- 
sally pronounced  to  rhyme  with  arh^  and  was  also 
very  often  written  dark  ;  and  clergy  was  pronounced 
clargy.  Indeed,  the  sound  of  e  before  r  was  until  a 
comparatively  recent  date  in  most  words  that  of  broad 
a  (aK).  The  most  cultivated  people  two  generations 
ago  said  sartain  and  sarvant.  Sergeant  is  even  now 
pronounced  by  the  best  speakers  in  England,  and 
generally  in  "  America,"  sarjeant ;  marcJiant  for  mer- 
chant has  but  just  become  obsolete,  and  is  preserved 
in  the  surname  Marchant.  The  old  parlous  was  a 
mere  contraction  of  perilous^  and  in  our  word  parson 
we  have  only  a  phonographic  petrifaction  of  the  old 
way  of  pronouncing  person  ;  for  the  parson  of  a  par- 
ish was  merely  the  person  of  it  par  excellence,  and 
in  the  "Canterbury  Tales"  we  have  the  "Person's 
[that  is,  the  Parson's]  Tale."  In  the  following  lines, 
from  the  ballad  of  the  "  Wonders  of  England," 
printed  about  1559,  we  find  what  was  then  a  mere 
phonographic  spelling  of  martial,  as  well  as  evidence 
that  the  combination  t  i  a  was  pronounced  then  ai 
Dow:  — 

"Fearing  again  God's  light  should  spring, 
Brought  mershial  law  forthwith  in  hand 


ORTHOEPY  AND  ORTHOGRAPHY.         66 

Against  all  such  as  would  withstand 

Their  wicked  ravfjne  and  cruell  band, 

And  God's  part  take." 

(Ancient  Ballades  and  Broadsides,  page  96.) 

And  Ben  Jonson,  in  "  The  C^^se  is  Altered,"  spello 
the  noble  Italian  name  Farnese  always  Fernese.  The 
pronunciation  dark  has  held  its  ground,  and  is  still 
that  of  the  best  speakers  in  England,  where  indeed  it 
may  be  regarded  as  almost  universal.  Having,  in  my 
boyhood,  been  familiarly  acquainted  with  the  old  town 
of  Derby,  in  Connecticut,  I  can  bear  witness  to  the 
pronunciation  of  its  name  as  Darby  by  those  who 
were  not  grooms  and  did  not  learn  their  speech  in 
stables.  Professor  Newman  was  momentarily  forget- 
ful. There  is  no  fact  in  phonology  better  established 
than  this  old  pronunciation  of  er ;  and  the  aristo- 
cratic pronunciation  of  Derby  and  Berkshire  is  merely 
conservative,  while  that  of  the  people  of  inferior  rank 
is  an  innovating  conformity  of  sound  to  sign,  — 
spelling-book  speech.  This  tendency  is  much  more 
general  in  "  America  "  than  in  England.  In  the  lat- 
ter country'-,  to  call  the  Earl  of  Derby  anything  but 
the  Earl  of  Darby  is  to  be  at  least  eccentric.  I  re- 
member hearing  an  English  gentleman  of  the  earl's 
own  social  circle  reply  to  a  remark  that  the  name 
was  pronounced  by  some  Englishmen  Durby,  "  Pos- 
sibly ;  but  I  am  sure  by  none  of  the  earl's  acquaint- 
ances." This  solicitude  as  to  the  pronunciation  of 
words  according  to  their  spelling  is  one  of  the  most 
unmistakable  signs  of  a  lack  of  that  education  which 
is  only  to  be  acquired  at  home,  —  an  education  which 
makes  pronunciation,  if  not  reading  and  writing, 
"come  by  nature."  The  pronunciation  now  to  be 
learned  from  teachers  in  public  schools  is  too  often 
6 


66  EVERY-DAY    ENGIISH. 

bad,  and  generally  stiff   and  pedantic, —  book  talk, 
not  free,  manly  speech. 

Nevertheless,  this  pronunciation  of  e,  ea,  and  i  be- 
fore r  as  obscure  u  has  been  steadily  although  slowly 
advancing  for  many  years.  Earthy  now  pronounced 
urtli^  was  formerly  pronounced  arth^  and  it  is  not 
long  since  the  pronunciation  entirely  disappeared, 
even  among  cultivated  speakers  of  extreme  conserva- 
tism and  high  fashion.  This  seems  strange  to  us  of 
the  present  generation  ;  but  we  have  the  same  sound 
of  ear  in  hearth  and  heart.  Hearth  is  but  the  earth 
on  which  the  fire  was  built,  as  the  main  beam  of  the 
house  is  the  vooi-tree.  In  both  these  homely  names 
for  homely  things  the  primitive  word  has  remained 
to  us.  The  pronunciation  of  hearth  as  hiirth  is  slowly 
creeping  in,  and  will  probably  prevail ;  but  it  will  be 
a  long  while  before  we  plainly  and  openly  call  our 
hearts  our  hurts.  There  is  a  tendenc}^  to  give  not 
only  e  but  i  and  even  o  before  r  the  sound  of  broad  a. 
We  have  all  heard  old  people,  not  uneducated,  say 
vartue,  although  that  pronunciation  of  vij-tue  now 
marks  the  extreme  of  rusticity.  I  have  heard  Eng- 
lishmen, although  not  those  of  the  best  culture,  pro- 
nounce corn  earn.  The  giving  of  the  obscure  sound 
of  u  to  i  before  r,  as  in  virtue,  is  a  comparatively  late 
fashion.  In  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and  even 
later,  to  pronounce  virtue  vurtue  was  pei'haps  even 
more  inelegant  than  to  pronounce  it  vartue.  I  give 
here  a  transcript  of  a  manuscript  note  which  I  found 
hiid  in  a  book  I  once  owned,  which  was  published  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  last  century.  The  handwriting 
is  elegant  and  of  the  period  ;  the  paper  such  old  laid« 
linen  fabric  as  has  not  been  made  for  a  hundred 
years. 


ORTHOEPy  AND  ORTHOGRAPHY.         67 


EPIJRAM     BY     THE     CELEBRATED     DAVID     GARRICK. 

In  1759  Dr.  Hill  wrote  a  Pamphlet  intituled  "To  David 
Garrick,  Esqre —  the  Petition  of  I  in  behalf  of  herself  and 
Sister."  The  purport  of  it  was  to  charge  Mr.  Garrick  with 
mispronouncing  some  words  including  the  letter  I,  ^%furm 
lor  JirTTi,  vurtue  for  virtue,  and  others. 

The  Pamphlet  is  now  sunk  in  oblivion  ;  but  the  following 
Epigram,  which  Mr.  Garrick  wrote  on  the  occasion,  de- 
serves to  be  preserved  as  one  of  the  best  in  the  English 
language : — 

TO  DR.  HILL,  UPON   HIS  PETITION  OF  THE  LETTER  I  TO  DAVID  GARRICK, 
ESQRE. 

If  'tis  true,  as  you  say,  that  I  've  injured  a  letter, 
I  '11  chanare  my  note  soon,  and  I  hope  for  the  better  ; 
May  the  just  right  of  letters,  as  well  as  of  men, 
Hereafter  be  fixed  by  the  tongue  and  the  pen. 
Most  devoutly  I  wish  that  they  both  have  their  due. 
That  1  may  be  never  mistaken  for  U. 

The  pronunciation  for  which  Dr.  Hill  contended 
with  Garrick  was  one  which  I  remember  having 
heard  from  some  old  people  in  my  boyhood, — a 
Bound  of  the  i  in  virtue^  firm,  birth,  etc.,  like  that 
which  we  now  give  to  e  m  ferry,  berry,  err^  etc.  ; 
these  people  thought  it  very  "  ungenteel  "  to  say 
vurtue,  furm,  burth,  and  as  bad  to  pronounce  inter 
intur,  or  err  ur.  They  pronounced  all  those  words 
vitli  the  vowel  sound  of  e  in  error.  Bitt  nowadays 
we  hear  some  slovenly  speakers  pronounce  even  the 
first  syllable  of  the  last  word  as  ur,  making  the  whole 
word  a  guttural  ur-r-r.  The  course  of  the  pronun- 
ciation of  the  i  in  virtue  and  the  like  seems  to  have 
been  this :  first  veertue  (with  the  Continental  sound 
of  z),  next  verrtue,  then  vurtue;  that  of  e  in  clerk  and 
the  like,  first  elayrk  (with  the  Continental  so  and  ot 
e),  then  dark,  and  finally,  as  in  clergyman.,  clurk. 


B8  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

The  sound  of  a  and  e  before  r  thus  shows  a  tend- 
ency to  run  confusedly  into  the  obscure  sound  of  u 
in  /itr,  which  is  certainly  not  to  be  admired,  but 
which  can  be  with  difficulty  restrained.^ 

In  words  other  than  proper  names,  Professor 
Newman  suggests  "a  few  cautious  innovations," 
which  are  themselves  suggestive.  In  words  in  which 
a  double  spelling  is  current  he  advocates  what  will 
hardly  be  disputed  by  any  one,  the  use  of  that  spell- 
ing which  agrees  best  with  the  sound.  He  would 
write  jail,  not  gaol,  show,  not  shew,  hiccup,  not  hic- 
cough, chesnut,  not  chestnut,  guage,  not  gauge,  and  so 
forth,  through  some  eighteen  words  which  need  not  be 
particularly  mentioned.  Among  them,  however,  are 
to  be  noticed  alchemy  and  chemist,  which  he  would 
spell  alchymy  and  chymist.  This  was  the  old  spell- 
ing ;  and  according  to  him  it  agrees  with  the  sound  of 
the  words.  But  according  to  the  best  orthoepists  of 
the  day,  the  pronunciation  is  chem  in  both  words  ;  and 
I  have  never  heard  it  otherwise  sounded  among  the 
best  speakers  in  England  or  "  America."  Whom  are 
we  to  trust  on  such  points,  and  what  phonetic  spell- 
ing shall  we  adopt  ?  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
that  the  better  spelling  and  pronunciation  is  chymist. 
The  question,  however,  is  not  what  is  the  best  or  the 
normally  right,  but  what  is.  In  this  word  orthog- 
raphy has  followed  orthoepy,  and  has  produced  the 
change  in  writing  which  the  philologists  prefer  as  a 
guide  to  the  changes  in  sound,  to  trace  which  is  their 
function. 

In  illustration  of  his  views  of  pronunciation  and 

*  Walker  {Principles,  etc.,  §  110)  says  that  the  sound  of  i  as  «  in  tht 
first  syllables  of  virgin  and  virtue  "has  a  grossness  in  it  approaching  vul 
parity.'* 


ORTHOEPY   AND    ORTHOGRAPHY.  69 

spelling,  and  of  their  relations,  Professor  Newman 
treats  eleven  numbered  examples,  which  are  here 
considered  in  their  order  :  — 

(1.)  Schedule  being  the  only  word  in  which  sch 
has  the  German  sound,  he  proposes  that  it  should  be 
written  shedule,  and  that  schism  should  be  written 
seism.  But  consistency  would  require  that  we  should 
write  sism  and  sissors,  if  we  make  any  change  at  all 
in  this  direction ;  and  as  to  schedide,  it  would  seem 
better  to  pronounce  it  according  to  analogy  with  the 
ch  hard,  as  in  scheme.  This  best  agrees  with  the 
derivation  of  the  word,  and  conforms  to  the  sound 
of  sch  in  most  of  those  words  in  which  ch  is  not  si- 
lent. For  like  reasons  schism  might  better  be  pro- 
nounced skism  than  written  seism  and  pronounced 
sism,  as  sceptre  might  better  be  pronounced  skeptre 
(like  skeptic').,  and  not  written  and  pronounced  septer. 
(2.)  Clerk,  sergeant,  heart,  and  hearth  have  er  or 
ear  for  ar.  It  is  proposed  to  extinguish  these  excep- 
tions, and  to  write  dark,  sargeant,  hart,  and  harth. 
This  proposal  is  made,  as  we  have  seen,  in  forgetful- 
ness  that  the  ar  sound  in  these  words  is  the  old 
sound,  and  that  clurk,  for  example,  although  it  is 
coming  in,  is  not  yet  the  pronunciation  of  the  best 
English  speakers.  Is  it  not  the  better  and  the  nat- 
ural way  to  let  the  change  go  gradually  on,  until 
these  words  conform  to  servant,  person,  and  the  like, 
•ather  than  to  make  a  radical  change  in  their  written 
"orms  ? 

(3.)  '■'■Yacht  alone  in  the  language  has  ch  mute. 
Who  will  regret  the  loss  of  the  chf  No  one,  proba- 
bly, would  mourn  over  it ;  but  if  we  insist  on  repre- 
senting the  present  pronunciation  of  the  word  in 
ivriting,  why  should  we  not  write  yot,  and  have  done 


70  EVERY-DAY   EXGLISH. 

with  it  ?  Once  upon  tliis  road  of  literal  conformity 
of  sign  to  sound,  we  cannot  stop  short  of  the  end,  al- 
though it  be  absurdity  and  confusion. 

(4.)  As  conceive  and  deceive  make  conceit  and  de- 
ceit, "  we  see  that  receive  ought  to  make  receit ;  the 
p  in  receipt  is  surely  a  vexation."  There  seems  to 
be  no  objection  to  this.  It  is  a  good  example  of  a 
desirable  change  in  orthography,  and  is  of  a  kind 
which  will  be  brought  about,  we  may  be  sure,  in  ^he 
progress  of  time. 

(5.)  "  Cruild,^^  Professor  Newman  says,  "  used  to 
rhyme  with  mild,  child,  and  wild.^'  It  will  surprise 
most  readers  that  he  says,  "  I  never  heard,  in  my 
early  days,  guild,  Guildhall,  sounded  with  short  z." 
So  quickly  do  changes  in  pronunciation  take  place, 
and  so  strange  to  the  son  are  the  vowels  of  his 
father  !  But  here  the  change  has  been  a  conformity 
to  analogy,  and  should  stand ;  the  mere  fact  that 
giuilt  is  gratuitously  confounded  with  gild  being  of  no 
importance. 

(6.)  In  '"''  Parliament,  ia  has  no  proper  place,"  we 
are  told,  and  that  '■''  parlement  is  the  old  and  only 
right  spelling."  As  to  this  there  seems  to  be  no 
doubt.  Here  we  have  another  example  of  a  sound 
and  sensible  change  proposed  in  orthography,  one 
which  should  be  adopted,  and  probably  will  be  adopted 
erelong.  But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  this  change 
s  directly  in  the  line  of  etymological  conformity,  and 
also  that  it  disturbs  no  established  association  as  to 
sound  or  as  to  sense.  To  changes  of  this  kind  no  ob- 
jection will  be  made  by  those  who  allow  reason  any 
Bway  in  this  matter. 

(7.)   In   husg  and   business    the   sound  of   w  as  ^ 
Professor   Newman    says,    "  is   a   peculiar   anomaly 


ORTHOEPY   AN)    ORTHOGRAPHY.  71 

irithout  historical  justification,"  and  he  adds  that  we 
"  ought,  without  hesitation,  to  write  hisy,  hishiess,  if 
not  rather  bizy,  hiziness.''^  Etymology  is  in  favor  of 
hisy,  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  bisig  ;  but  that  was  pro- 
nounced heeneeg  ;  and  hhy  seems  to  be  really  a  pho- 
netic conformity  to  a  change  in  the  sound  of  the 
word.  For  that  in  hu%y  u  has  the  sound  of  z,  a  pho- 
nologist  would  be  apt  to  dispute.  True,  it  has  the 
sound  of  i  in  his  and  in  ivisdom;  but  a  phonologist 
would  say  that  that  sound  is  not  the  sound  of  i,  or  of 
a,  e,  0,  or  m,  but  is  one  of  those  obscni^e  vowel  sounds 
that  have  no  representative  in  our  alphabet.  JBizy 
and  biziness,  or  more  correctly  bizness,  may  come 
into  vogue  ;  and,  indeed,  on  the  stage  "  business  " 
(meaning  ilhistrative  action  on  the  part  of  the  per- 
formers) is  called  biz,  which  appears  even  upon 
prompt-books  ;  but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  this 
will  greatly  tend  to  further  the  acceptance  of  the 
new   orthography.      And    must  we   write   hereafter 

"  How  doth  the  little  bizy  be  "  ? 

(8.)  Professor  Newman  next  considers  one  of  the 
eilent-letter  combinations,  which  the  phonetic  reform- 
ers set  up  as  such  tremendous  stumbling-blocks.  He 
says,  "  Perhaps  ten  words  end  in  mb  with  b  mute." 
Here  he  is  not  quite  right ;  there  are  more  than  twenty 
vords  (not  counting  the  compounds)  ending  in  mb, 
ind  in  all  of  them  the  b  is  mute.  In  all,  however, 
excepting  one,  he  would  have  the  b  suppressed,  and 
would  write  for  tomb,  womb,  and  lamb,  toom,  woom, 
and  lam.  But  in  climb  he  would  retain  the  b,  be- 
cause it  has  "  both  etymological  reason  and  potential 
life,  as  clamber  shows ;  "  wherefo'-e  "  to  write  clime 
for  climb  would  be  mere  depravation.  '     It  seems  to 


72  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

me  that  any  student  of  language  who  is  not  bitten 
with  the  phonetic  mania  would  accept  the  last  con* 
elusion.  Professor  Newman  would  also  have  the  b 
sounded  and  the  i  short,  which,  with  reason,  he  says 
is,  "  I  doubt  not,  the  old  and  only  true  pronuncia- 
tion." With  equal  reason  he  says  that  there  would 
be  no  more  difficulty  in  pronouncing  climb  thus  than 
in  sounding  the  p  in  limp^  imp,  and  jump.  But 
in  tomb  the  b  has  etymological  reason,  the  French 
being  tombeau,  the  Italian  tomba  ;  and  so  with  womb 
and  lamb,  in  which  the  b  is  from  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
as  we  call  the  earliest  form  of  our  language.  And 
in  two  of  these  words  the  b  has  also  a  certain  poten- 
tial life,  for  it  prevents  tomb  from  becoming  in  sound 
torn,  and  ivomb  from  undergoing  a  like  change  to 
ivom.  (We  do,  indeed,  have  in  Old  English,  wame.^ 
Now  the  introduction  of  oo  into  these  words  for  the 
preservation  of  their  present  pronunciation  is  one 
of  the  strangest  and  most  incongruous  devices  that 
could  be  proposed  in  a  scheme  for  simplifying  and 
normalizing  orthography.  For  among  all  the  anom- 
alies in  our  written  language,  there  is  none  greater 
than  that  in  virtue  of  which  one  a  has  the  sound 
of  oh,  but  0  doubled  the  sound  of  u  in  rude.  Re- 
garded in  the  light  of  analogy  and  consistency,  it  is 
simply  monstrous.  The  necessity  for  its  introduc- 
tion well  illustrates  the  entanglement  of  this  whole 
subject.  Better  a  silent  b  which  has  etymological 
reason  than  oo  which  has  no  reason,  and  which  is  a 
phonetic  monstrosity.  As  to  the  b  in  litjib,  numb, 
and  thumb,  having  no  etymological  support  for  its 
presence,  it  may  well  be  dropped  whenever  the 
whim  takes  us,  as  it  probably  will,  to  have  no  more 
of  it. 


ORTHOEPY   AND   ORTHOGRAPHY.  73 

(9.)  There  are  in  English  two  words  beginning  with 
hu  in  which  the  u  is  superfluous.  These  are  build  and 
but/ ;  for,  as  Professor  Newman  well  says,  in  buoy 
careful  speakers  rightly  sound  the  z<,  and  do  not  con- 
found the  word  with  boy.  Build  he  would  write  bild^ 
which  is  the  spelling  of  the  word  in  the  German  lan- 
guage, from  which  he  believes  (disregarding  the  An- 
glo-Saxon byldan,  to  establish)  we  adopted  build; 
but  it  must  have  been  more  than  eight  centuries  ago. 
In  buy  also,  according  to  Professor  Newman,  the  u  has 
no  rightful  place ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  being  bycgan  and 
the  Old  English  bigge.  But  the  Gothic  bugjan  has 
Bome  weight  on  the  side  of  w,  particularly  as  i  does  not 
exactly  represent  y.  Nevertheless,  the  u  does  not 
seem  important  for  any  reason.  As  to  change,  Pro- 
fessor Newman  says,  "  Unless  we  are  to  extirpate  gh 
in  nigh^  high,  and  many  other  words,  it  is  obvious  to 
correct  buy,  buyer,  into  bigh,  bigher,''  which  seems  a 
violent  change  until  we  reflect  that  in  the  past  tense 
of  buy,  bought,  we  have  the  gh.  This  combination 
I'epresents  a  guttural  sound  which  without  a  doubt 
used  to  be  heard  in  all  these  words,  and  which  they 
still  have  in  mouths  of  North  of  England  and  Low- 
land Scots  folk. 

(10.)  "  The  eccentric  word  women  ought  certainly 
to  be  written  wimeyi."  Professor  Newman  gives  no 
reason  for  this  very  curt  and  absolute  decision.  The 
reason  which  might  be  assigned  for  the  change  is 
twofold  :  first  pronunciation  and  next  derivation,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  word  having  been  wif-man,  the  Old  Eng- 
lish wimmon.  But  wimen  cannot  be  accepted  as  the 
plural  of  woman;  and  are  we  prepared  to  accept  wiman 
*s  the  singular  ?  —  to  sing  our  songs  and  to  give  our 
learts  to  wiman?     Rather  than  this,  shall  we  not  ac- 


74  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

i^pt  iviwen  as  an  irregular,  corrupt  pronnuciation  of 
women,  one  of  those  deviations  from  strict  rectitude 
wliieb  are  graceful  and  pardonable  ? 

(11.)  '''■Nephew  should  he  neveio  ;  French  nevgw." 
But  already  there  are  indications  that  erelong  nevew 
will  yield  to  ni'feic,  as  the  pronunciation  of  this  word 
by  the  best  speakers  ;  and  then  the  chief  reason  for 
the  proposed  change  will  have  disappeared,  and  the 
fate  of  the  word  in  its  new  written  form  will  illustrate 
the  difficulty  of  any  deliberate  and  aggressive  refor- 
mation in  language,  and  will  also  prefigure  the  fate 
of  other  words  which  might  undergo  like  transmuta- 
tion. 

These  characteristic  examples  of  changes  in  orthog- 
raphy proposed  by  a  man  singularly  capable  of  such 
an  undertaking,  and  one  who  has  considered  it  care- 
fidly,  and  moreover  one  who  shows  no  conservative 
shuddering  at  change,  have  a  various  value.  It  will 
be  seen  that  they  all  tend  toward  etymological  con- 
formity, rather  than  away  from  it,  and  that  they  seem 
to  do  so  in  conformity  to  a  law,  or  at  least  an  im- 
pulse, rather  than  because  of  a  phonetic  purpose  on 
the  part  of  their  suggester.  They  show  on  the  part 
of  such  a  man  as  Professor  Newman  an  instinctive 
preference  for  an  open,  free,  and  manly  utterance 
t>f  words.  And  as  to  spelling,  —  for  the  two  sub- 
jects of  spelling  and  pronunciation  are  inseparable, 
—  they  enable  us  to  see,  as  it  were  in  a  little  mir- 
ror, the  extreme  difficulty  (may  it  not  bo  said  the 
Impossibility  ?)  of  making  in  the  received  spelling 
of  English  such  a  general  reform  toward  phonetic 
exactness  as  would  be  at  once  effectual  and  accept- 
able. By  changes,  even  of  the  kind  proposed  by 
Professor  Newnuin  himself,  that  which   he  elsewher* 


ORTHOEPY  AND  ORTHOGRAPHY.         T5 

calls  the  "  nobler  instrument  "  or  medium  of  thought 
—  written  language  —  would  be  degraded,  if  not 
quite  destroyed,  as  to  its  higher  value.  Briefly,  we 
are  led  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  choice 
between  a  sweeping  away  of  our  present  alphabet, 
and  with  it  of  the  noblest  literature  the  world  has 
known,  —  a  project  rejected  now  even  by  the  most 
eminent  phonologists,  —  and  the  allowing  our  present 
orthography  to  remain,  subject  only  to  such  gradually 
shanging  influences  as  have  been  silently  at  work 
apon  it  for  centuries. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ITNACCENTED   VOWELS   AND    FINAL  CONSONANTS.  — 
THE  IRISH  PRONUNCIATION. 

The  inquirers  as  to  the  true  pronunciation  of  Eng- 
lish are  a  great  multitude.  If  they  were  told  that  the 
right  pronunciation  for  each  one  of  them  is  just  that 
in  the  midst  of  which  he  was  born  and  bred,  many  of 
them  would,  receive  the  information  with  doubt  and 
wonder;  of  which,  indeed,  there  would  be  some  justi- 
fication. And  yet  there  would  be  also  some  reason 
in  the  declaration  ;  for  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
maintain  that  for  the  members  of  any  community 
the  right  pronunciation  of  their  mother  tongue  is  that 
which  prevails  among  their  kinsfolk,  their  friends, 
and  their  neighbors.  Of  this  all  men  may  be  sure : 
that  if  they  do  adopt  any  other  pronunciation  they 
will  make  themselves  the  subjects  of  invidious  re- 
mark, and  pei'haps  fail  to  attain  the  only  end  and 
purpose  of  speech,  —  the  being  understood  by  those 
to  whom  it  is  addressed.  What  people  really  mean 
(although  they  may  not  know  it)  by  the  right  pro- 
nunciation of  English  is  the  pronunciation  in  vogue 
in  the  most  cultivated  society  in  England,  and  chiefly 
of  London,  and  perhaps  we  may  say  of  the  two  great 
universities,  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  For  persons  of 
rank  and  education,  who  were  born  and  bred  remote 
fiom  the  British  metropolis,  and  who  have  passed 
xnoat  of  their  lives  in  their  own  counties  (particularly 


THE  IRISH  PRONUNCIATION,  77 

if  those  are  far  northward  or  westward  from  Lon- 
don), are  rarely  without  peculiarities  of  utterance, 
both  m  general  tone  and  in  the  sounds  of  particular 
words,  which  mark  their  speecn  as  "  provincial." 

Now,  this  pronunciation  of  cultivated  Loi»don  is 
not  uniform.  It  is  marked  with  variations  due  to 
several  causes,  one  of  which  is  affectation.  There  are 
namby-pamby,  dawdling  speakers,  who  min:!e  and 
clip  their  words,  and  utter  them  without  distinct  ar- 
ticulation ;  and  these  speakers,  notwithstanding  that 
they  are  reprehended  by  those  who  would  preserve 
a  simple,  strong,  and  manly  speech,  and  ridiculed 
("  Punch  "  makes  fun  of  them),  exert  an  influence. 
Indeed,  it  is  impossible  for  even  one  man  to  persist 
'n  a  peculiarity  of  speech,  if  it  is  not  too  strangely 
it  variance  with  the  common  pronunciation,  without 
exercising  a  modifying  influence  upon  the  speech  of 
those  around  him. 

The  right  pronunciation  of  English  means  the  right 
pronunciation  now ;  and  the  best  pronunciation  has 
almost  a  conventional  meaning,  that  is,  the  pronun- 
ciation of  the  best  society.  But,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  pronunciation  of  this  society  may  be  really  bad  ; 
affectation  and  fashion  may  change  it  for  the  worse. 
Yet  if  the  deterioration  prevails,  it  must  be  accepted. 
There  is  no  help  for  this  in  language.  We  may  see 
plainly  that  a  coming  or  even  an  accomplished  change 
is  for  tiie  worse,  and  we  may  rightfully  protest  against 
it ;  but  the  change  once  effected,  we  must  adopt  it, 
within  certain  limits,  at  least,  or  else  we  become  sin- 
gular ;  and  to  be  singular  in  speech  is  to  be  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  unintelligible. 

As  to  the  more  strongly  marked  sound  of  words, 
the  consonants,  the   accented  vowels,  and  the  long 


78  E VERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

unaccented  vowels,  there  can  be  little  diflBculty  foi 
any  person  whose  edncation  is  sufficient  to  make  un- 
certainty embarrnssing.  On  those  points  the  usage 
which  they  may  observe  in  every-day  life,  supple- 
mented by  the  dicta  of  a  good  dictionary,  will  be  suf- 
ficient. It  is  in  the  minuter  points  that  difficulty 
lies.  It  is  in  the  delicate  but  firm  utterance  of  the 
unaccented  vowels  with  correct  sound  that  the  cult- 
ured person  is  most  surely  distinguished  from  the 
uncultured.  No  one  has  any  difficulty  in  giving  the 
accented  e  and  the  accented  o  their  proper  sounds  in 
hysterical  and  historical ;  but  how  lai'ge  is  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  make  the  same  distinction  between 
the  unaccented  e  and  the  unaccented  o  in  mystery 
and  history,  in  literal  and  littoral?  And  yet  in  that 
and  in  like  distinction  lie  the  beauty  and  the  elegance 
of  cultivated  speech.  The  slovenly  speaker  "lumps" 
almost  all  such  vowels  into  the  obscure  sound  of  w, 
Baying  mystur-y,  histur-y,  litur-al,  and  littur-al,  even 
if  he  does  not  go  further  and  say  mystry,  histry, 
litrall,  and  litturl.  The  same  abominable  slovenli- 
ness gives  us  Muzzuruh  for  Missouri,  and  FuVdelfy 
for  Philadelphia.  So  in  such  words  as  contrite,  finite, 
ViXiA  female  the  unaccented  vowels  of  the  last  syllable 
being  long,  it  must  be  an  ingeniously  bad  speaker 
who  misutters  them.  But  in  such  words  as  mutable, 
emphasis,  purpose,  favorable,  pliant,  and  lion,  the 
unaccented  vowels  are  again  all  made  short  u  by 
slovens  in  speech,  who  pronounce  them  as  mutuhble. 
cmphusis,  purpus  (or  puppus'),  favoruble  (or  fav- 
ruble^y  pliunt^  liun.  In  like  manner,  the  unaccented 
a  of  the  last  syllable  of  such  words  as  damage,  rav' 
age,  savage,  orange,  is  changed  into  the  short,  obscure 
Bound  of  i;  and  we  hear  them  pronounced  damig 
ravig,  savig,  oring. 


THK   IRISH    PRONUNCIATION.  79 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  in  the  discussion  of  this 
part  of  his  subject  Professor  Newman  says  merely 
that  "  e  and  i  ending  an  unaccented  syllable  cannot 
be  discriminated,"  and  that  in  permeate,  vegetate,  perse- 
vere,  the  sound  of  the  unaccented  e  cannot  be  distin- 
guished from  that  of  the  unaccented  i  in  germinate, 
parsimony,  and  purity,  and  that  he  speaks  of  this  ob- 
scurity as  "  the  natural  result  of  the  stress  placed 
strongly  on  one  syllable."  Against  this  assertion  I 
protest.  By  those  who  speak  English  well  a  differ- 
ence is  made  between  the  e  of  such  words  as  the  first 
three  and  the  i  of  such  as  the  last ;  a  difference  which 
is  effected  by  them,  and  the  absence  of  which  in  the 
speech  of  others  is  detected  by  them,  with  ease  and 
with  certainty.  They  sny  per-me-ate,  making  the  e  as 
plain  as  if  they  said  per-mee-ate,  although  they  touch 
it  so  lightly  ;  and  when  they  say  par-sim-ony,  it  is 
quite  impossible  for  an  ear  at  all  nice  to  mistake  the 
sound  for  par-8e-mony. 

In  so  far  as  a  correct  and  elegant  utterance  of  Ens;- 
lish  is  to  be  acquired  by  effort,  it  comes  by  atten- 
tion to  these  details.  A  person  who  utters  the  vowel 
sounds  in  the  unaccented  syllables  of  words  correctly, 
and  whose  r's,  Z's,  and  final  (i's  and  ^'s  are  heard,  dis- 
tinct but  light  upon  his  tongue,  will  have  no  difficulty 
about  the  simpler  matters,  the  sound  of  the  accented 
vowels.  In  fact,  bad  utterance  may  be  said  to  be  al- 
ways the  result  of  slovenliness  in  speech.  Mere  pro- 
vincialism in  pronunciation,  which  is  generally  in  the 
eound  given  to  accented  vowels,  is  venial  in  comparison 
with  slovenly  speech,  the  effect  of  which  is  like  that 
of  smearing  and  daubing  the  outlines  of  a  painting 
finished  but  not  yet  dry.  Yet  this  habit  prevails  and 
always  has  prevailed,  with  the  result  of  a  constant 
degradation  of  speech,  a  phonetic  decay  in  words. 


60  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

A  perception  of  this  fact  in  phonetics  leads  students 
of  language,  not  unnaturally,  although  perhaps  vainly, 
to  seek  for  what  may  be  called  the  best  pronunciation 
abstractly,  irrespective  of  fashion,  —  the  mere  usage 
of  the  day.  The  temptation  to  this  inquiry  is  the 
greater  when,  as  now,  there  is  an  unprecedentedly 
strong  effort  to  make  our  written  language  conform 
precisely  to  our  speech.  Professor  Newman  is  very 
decided  upon  this  point.  He  says,  "  It  is  at  least  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  define  what  is  the  right  pronun- 
ciation (whether  or  not  we  can  persuade  this  genera- 
tion to  adopt  it)  before  we  can  wisely  begin  so  vast 
a  change  as  total  remodeling  of  our  orthography." 
To  this  he  adds  as  a  corollary  that  "  if  in  this  gen- 
eration we  protest  in  favor  of  a  right  pronunciation, 
and  schools  do  their  dut}^,  the  next  generation  will 
grow  up  with  a  new  ideal.  The  defective  utterance 
will  be  gradually  thought  vulgar." 

This  opinion  is  noticeable,  first,  for  the  position 
taken  in  it  that  there  is  some  other  rule  of  right  in 
language  than  mere  usage  —  a  position  not  new  to  the 
readers  of  "  Words  and  their  Uses."  But,  passing 
this  by  without  further  comment,  we  ask,  What  is 
the  pronunciation  which  Professor  Newman  sets  forth 
as  the  best  ?  He  says,  "  Of  two  rival  pronunciations, 
that  is  the  better  which  better  discriminates  words 
ind  aids  to  fix  the  sense."  This  so  plainly  conforms 
M  reason  and  to  the  purpose  of  language  that  it  will 
hardly  be  controverted  by  any  competent  writer  upon 
the  subject. 

Passing  from  this  general  and  somewhat  abstract 
consideration  of  the  subject  we  may  ask.  What  is  the 
best  actual  style  of  pronouncing  English  ?  Is  there  a 
WB.J  of  pronouncing  English  which  in  itself  is  best 


THE  IRISH  PRONUNCIATION.  81 

Independent  of  the  fashion  of  any  day?  I  believe 
that  there  is  such  a  pronunciation,  and  some  years 
ago  published  my  belief.  It  is  with  pleasure  that  I 
find  myself  supported  by  the  opinion  of  Professor 
Newman,  who  declares  liimself  in  favor  of  the  Irish 
pronunciation. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  he  does  not  desire  to 
introduce  the  Irish  brogue,  or  brogues;  for  there  are 
several  brogues,  distinctive  of  various  provinces.  He 
means  the  speech  of  educated  Irish  gentlemen  and 
ladies.  Thus,  for  example,  in  carrying  out  the  rule 
of  distinction  of  sense  by  pronunciation,  he  would 
distinguish  soul  from  sole  by  giving  to  soul  the  Irish 
pronunciation,  sotcl.  As  to  r,  he  says,  "  Every  Irish 
gentleman  seems  to  me  accurately  to  pronounce  it ; 
and  I  do  not  doubt  that  he  has  the  true,  primitive 
pronunciation,  which  we,  from  carelessness,  have 
lost."  He  speaks  with  approval  of  Irish  ladies,  who, 
"  without  the  smallest  affectation  or  effort,  pronounce 
calm,  pahn^  alms,  just  as  they  are  written,  retaining 
the  Z,  and  making  the  a  short  and  sharp,  as  in  man'^ 
About  half  and  calf  he  is  not  so  sure,  but  he  favors 
the  same  pronunciation,  and  believes  that  such  was 
the  English  pronunciation  once,  and  such  ought  to 
be  now.  He  would  extend  it  to  all  words  in  aZ,  — 
walk,  stalk,  chalk,  and  balk.  The  many  monosylla- 
bles in  00,  such  as  book,  brook,  cook,  crook,  look,  foot, 
wood,  etc.,  he  would  pronounce  with  the  long  vowel 
sound  in  cool,  rule.  In  short  (to  pass  by  other  res- 
torations, such  as  that  of  the  initial  consonants  in 
words  like  knife,  gnat,  and  psalm,  which  may  here 
only  be  alluded  to),  the  changes  which  he  regards 
as  necessary  are  all  toward  what  we  now  call  the 
frish  pronunciation. 
« 


«2  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

For  myself  I  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring  in  fa* 
vor  of  the  Irish  pronmiciation  of  the  words  in  which 
a  is  sounded  ah^  and  in  which  the  compounds  ea  and 
ei  have  the  sound  of  ay  :  sayt,  not  seet,  for  the  word 
seat^  and  consayt,  not  conseet,  for  the  word  conceit; 
ayther,  nayther,  not  eether,  neether^  or  much  worse 
ither,  nither.  And  who  will  doubt  a  moment  that 
richness  and  clearness  and  elegance  are  given  to  lan- 
guage by  the  Irish  r,  the  light  roll  of  which  gives  us 
born  instead  of  bawn,  car  instead  of  cah,  arms  for 
ahms,  order  for  awduh,  and  lord  for  laivd;  and  which 
puts  a  backbone  into  such  words  as  corn,  cart,  court, 
mortal,  murky,  warn,  wear,  short,  and  the  like  !  ^ 

Whether  a  return,  or  even  an  approximation,  to  this 
pronunciation  is  practicable  is  a  question  which  I  shall 
not  here  discuss ;  but  I  am  glad  of  this  occasion  of 
reiterating  my  opinion  that  the  speech  of  educated 
Irish  gentlemen  represents  the  pronunciation  of  the 
English  language  at  its  best,  —  in  the  Elizabethan  pe- 
riod, the  period  of  Shakespeare  and  Bacon,  and  of  our 
translation  of  the  Bible.  It  has  been  preserved,  at 
least  in  a  great  measure,  among  educated  people  of 
English  blood  whose  forefathers  settled  in  the  north 
of  Ireland.  As  to  the  silent  I  in  calm  and  calf,  and 
other  clipped  and  silent  letters,  there  is  an  illustration 
in  "  Love's  Labor 's  Lost."     Plolofernes,  the  scliool- 

1  That  the  r  in  iron  is  slighted  by  many  speakers,  and  by  not  a  few 
who  should  be  ashamed  of  such  slovenliness,  I  had  of  course  observed; 
but  I  was  not  prepared  to  find,  on  turniui^  to  Storuionth's  dictionarj-,  as  I 
read  the  proof  of  this  page,  that  Mr.  Piielp  gives  i'ern  as  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  that  fine  word.  I  could  pardon  him  for  pronouncing  pewter peW' 
lah ;  but  to  lose  the  r  in  the  word  iro7i  is  almost  as  bad  as  it  would  be  to 
iiose  the  strength  in  the  metal.  Without  the  r  we  should  lose,  with  thf 
Ibyine,  half  the  sense  and  all  the  edge  of  Butler's  couplet, — 

"Ah  me,  the  perils  that  environ 
The  man  that  meddles  with  cold  iron  I  " 


THE   IRISH   PRONUNCIATION.  83 

master,  speaking  of  Armado,  whom  he  ridicules  and 
Bcoffs  at  for  his  affectation  in  speech,  says  that  he  ab- 
hors "  sucli  rackers  of  orthography  as  to  speak  dout, 
fine,  when  he  should  say  doubt;  det,  when  he  should 
pronounce  debt^  —  debt,  not  det;  he  clepeth  [calls] 
a  calf  cauf,  half  hanf,  neir/hbour  vocatur  nebour  ;  neigh 
abbreviated  we."  And  I  have  myself  heard  the  Z  pro- 
nounced in  talk  and  such  like  words  in  Cheshire, 
England.^  There  is  no  doubt  that  most  of  these  now 
Bilent  letters  were  heard  in  Elizabethan  English.^ 

How  great  the  difference  is  between  the  sound  of 
Elizabethan  English  and  that  of  the  court  of  Victoria 
may  be  seen  by  comparing  a  passage  from  Hamlet 
as  it  is  spoken  now  with  the  same  passage  as  it  was 
spoken  in  the  year  1600  :  — 

"Is  it  not  monstrous  that  this  player  here, 
But  in  a  fiction,  in  a  dream  of  passion, 
Could  force  his  soul  so  to  his  own  conceit. 
That  from  her  worlving  all  his  visage  warm'd; 
Tears  in  his  eyes,  distraction  in  's  aspect, 
A  broken  voice,  and  his  whole  function  suiting 
With  forms  to  his  conceit ;  and  all  for  nothing." 

Expressed  as  it  best  raaj^  be  in  the  spelling  of  our 
day,*it  was  then  spoken  thus  :  — 

1  On  my  mentioning  this  to  a  distinguished  Oxford  professor  and  aa- 
tnor,  he  told  me  that  be  pronounced  the  I  in  talh  and  in  all  similar 
words. 

2  In  taking  this  position  with  Professor  Newman,  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
FJiying  that  the  view  of  English  pronunciation  which  he  presents  was  set 
forth  in  detail  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  in  the  Memnrnndumn  of 
English  Pronnnciation  in  the  Elizabethan  Ei-a,  appended  to  the  twelfth 
Tolume  of  my  edition  of  Shakespeare,  18G3.  It  was  reprinted  by  Alex- 
ander Ellis  in  his  great  work  on  tlie  history  of  English  pronunciation, 
Bs  being  the  first  attempt  to  show  the  pronunciation  of  the  Elizabetlian 
period.  Mr.  Ellis  gave  it  a  modified  assent,  which  I  have  good  reason 
to  believe  would  now  be  far  more  comprehensive.  I  am,  of  course,  much 
gratified  at  having  the  support  of  suet  opinion  as  that  of  Professor  New 
nan. 


84  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH, 

'^Eeg  eet  not  monstroos  thot  thees  player  hai'e, 
Boot  ten  a.feec-sy-on,  een  a  dhrame  of  pass-y-on, 
Coold  force  hees  sowl  so  to  Jiees  own  consate, 
Thot  from  her  working  all  hees  veesac/e  warm'd; 
Tares  een  hees  ayes;  deesthraction  een  's  aspect, 
A  broken  voice,  and  hees  whole  foonction  shooting 
Weet  forms  to  hees  consate ;  and  all  for  noting." 

To  many  readers,  to  most,  it  will  seem  irapossille 
that  these  can  be  the  spoken  words  that  Shakespeare 
wrote,  and  they  will  regard  this  pronunciation  as  ri- 
diculous. A  Hamlet  that  spoke  the  soliloquy  thus 
would  now  be  received  with  shrieks  of  laughter,  if  he 
had  not  before  been  driven  from  the  stage,  when  he 
broke  in  upon  the  Ghost  with,  "  O  mee  prophetic  sowl, 
meen  ooncle  /"  But  I  am  as  sure  as  I  can  be  of  'dx^j- 
thing  that  I  do  not  know  of  my  personal  knowledge, 
that  Shakespeare  so  spoke  those  words,  if  he  ever 
spoke  them,  and  that  Burbage  so  spoke  them  on  the 
stage.  This  I  said  nearly  twenty  years  ago.  As 
to  the  ridiculousness  of  the  pronunciation,  nothing 
in  pronunciation  is  essentially  ridiculous.  We  laugh 
merely  at  that  to  which  we  are  unaccustomed.  We 
may  be  sure  that  Shakespeare  would  have  laughed  as 
much  at  our  pronunciation  as  we  do  at  his.  And 
from  laughing  at  "-Hamlet"  we  are  saved  only  by  the 
fact  that  it  is  preserved  to  us,  not  in  a  phonographic, 
but  in  a  conventional,  orthography. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"AMERICAN"   SPEECH. 

I  NEVER  am  at  Wallack's  Theatre  without  wishing 
that  more  people  were  in  the  habit  of  going  there ; 
or,  rather,  as  that  could  hardly  be  without  lessening 
the  comfort  and  risking  the  safety  of  those  who  do 
go,  I  wish  that  there  were  four  or  five  "  Wallack's  " 
in  New  York,  and  two  or  three  in  Boston  and  in  Phil- 
adelphia, and  one  in  every  smaller  town  throughout 
the  country.  For  there  one  not  only  sees  good  plays 
and  good  acting,  but  hears  good  English  speech.  Of 
the  dreadful  misuse  of  our  mother  tongue  of  which  va- 
rious eminent  artists  upon  various  "  sensational "  and 
"  emotional "  stages  are  guilty,  I  have  said  something 
-Isewhere  ;  and  I  shall  say  nothing  more  here,  except 
to  remark  that  the  mere  fact  that  these  artists  attain 
popularity  with  such  an  utterance  of  English  shows 
how  thoroughly  the  ear  of  the  general  public  is  de- 
praved, how  dull  it  is,  how  incapable  of  apprehending 
beauties  or  defects  in  spoken  language.  Indeed,  the 
indifference  of  people  in  this  respect  is  astonishing ; 
and  it  is  the  more  so  because  of  their  fussy  sensitive- 
ness upon  other  points  of  language  which  are  of  much 
less  importance.  Of  the  numberless  questions  in  re- 
gard to  language  which  have  from  time  to  time  been 
addressed  to  me, — I  can't  see  exactly  why,  and  I 
wish  that  it  had  not  been  so,  —  almost  all  were  as  to 
what  the  inquirers  called  "  good  grammar,"  or  spell- 


BQ  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

ing,  or  some  utterly  insignificant   and  contemptible 
dispute.^ 

As  to  the  most  important  points  of  language,  speech, 
the  manner  of  utterance,  and  the  right  use  of  words, 
few  persons  or  none  seem  to  have  any  concern.  Every 
one  assumes,  or  seems  to  assume,  that  his  mode  oi 
speech  is  just  what  it  ought  to  be,  or  he  regards  the 
subject  as  one  of  no  consequence.  The  former  la 
probably  the  state  of  most  men's  minds  upon  the  sub- 
ject, and  the  assumption  is  unconscious.  For  the 
speech  amid  which  we  have  grown  up,  and  by  which 
our  ears  and  our  tongues  have  been  educated  through 
childhood  and  adolescence,  so  that  we  have  adopted 
it  unconsciously,  is  necessarily  to  us  the  natural  and 
proper  utterance  of  our  mother  tongue.  We  think  of 
it  hardly  more  than  we  think  of  the  air  we  breathe 
or  of  the  light  by  which  we  see.  We  are  concerned 
about  it  no  more  than  we  are  about  our  way  of  walk- 
ing. Not  even  when  those  whose  intonation  and 
enunciation  are  bad  find  themselves  in  the  company 
of  those  who  are  irreproachable  in  these  respects  dc 
they  doubt  the  propriety  of  their  own  speech.  In- 
deed, unless  they  have  sensitive  ears  and  are  more 
than  commonly  observant,  they  do  not  perceive  the 
difference  between  their  own  manner  of  speech  and 
that  of  the  others.  They  will  suppose  that  they 
themselves  are  speaking  just  as  they  are  spoken  to. 
But  (and  this  is  very  remarkable  and  significant), 
let  the  person  who  speaks  properly  change  his  mode 
of  utterance  for  theirs,  even  in  a  single  phrase,  and 

1  As,  for  instance,  whether  it  is  "  proper  "  to  say  "To-morrow  is  Mon- 
day," or  "  lo-niorrow  will  be  Mondaj' ;  "  as  to  which,  although  it  is  not  s 
Diatter  worth  a  moment's  thought  of  anj'  reasonable  creature,  I  have  re 
reived  at  least  one  hundred  letters,  besides  the  personal  inquiries,  whick 
I  fear  that  I  may  not  have  always  answered  with  unruffled  temper. 


"AMERICAN"   SPEECH.  87 

the  change  will  be  noticed  instantly,  and  resented, 
either  openly  or  silently.  The  self-confident  and  un- 
perceiving  person  of  a  moment  before  at  once  per- 
ceives his  failing,  and  is  angered  at  being  "  mocked." 
Thus  is  the  ear  at  the  same  time  sensitive  to  the 
slightest  changes  in  the  speech  of  others,  and  habitu- 
ally dull  and  im perceptive  in  regard  to  the  utterance 
of  the  lips  which  are  its  constant  associates. 

It  cannot  be  too  strongly  asserted,  and  it  can 
hardly  be  too  often  repeated  in  the  discussion  of  this 
subject,  that  no  dictionary,  no  book  on  elocution,  can 
teach  the  proper  way  of  speaking  English.  That 
comes,  as  I  have  said  before,  only  through  the  ear,  by 
constantly  hearing  English  well  spoken,  and  by  imi- 
tation, generally  unconscious,  of  good  speech.  This 
is  why  a  general  and  frequent  attendance  of  the 
"American"  public  at  "  Wallack's  "  is  so  much  to  be 
desired,  because  there  is  no  other  place  of  public  re- 
sort where  English  is  so  correctly  spoken.  I  will  not 
say  "so  correctly,"  but  simply  and  plainly  that  there 
is  no  other  that  I  know  of  where  it  is  correctly  spoken, 
and  that  I  know  here  no  public  school  of  English 
speech  equal  to  that  pleasant  one  in  which  lessons 
may  be  taken  by  listening  to  Mr.  Wallack,  Mr.  Gil- 
bert, Miss  Dyas,  and  their  fellow-artists. 

Usage,  of  the  highest  authority  and  greatest  weight 
in  all  departments  of  language,  is  in  pronunciation 
the  supreme  and  absolute  arbiter.  With  regard  to 
others,  reason,  historical  affiliation,  and  logical  co- 
herence have  some  weight,  be  it  moi"e  or  less  ;  but  if, 
for  example,  it  is  the  habit  of  the  best  society  to  call 
a  certain  ornamental  vessel  a  vaws,  a  vatvs  it  is,  and 
there  an  end  ;  that  is  English.  Now,  what  usage  is 
to  decide  this  question  of  the  sound  of  the  names  w-a 


B8  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

give  to  tilings  and  thoughts  and  actions? — for  that 
is  pronunciation.  Is  it  the  usage  of  Texas,  or  of 
California,  or  of  Tennessee  ?  There  are  intelligent, 
educated,  polite  people  in  all  those  places,  I  am  will- 
ing to  believe  (for  I  have  never  been  in  any  one  of 
them).  But  is  the  usage  even  of  such  people  in 
those  places  a  standard  of  the  pronunciation  of  Eng 
lish  ?  Is  even  the  usage  of  scholars  and  professors 
and  philologists  there,  or  in  New  England,  or  in  New 
York,  to  which  I  have  been  referred,  authoritative 
upon  this  point  ?  I  think  not.  A  man  may  be  very 
learned,  even  in  language,  and  yet  his  use  of  language, 
in  construction,  in  the  sense  of  words,  and,  above  all, 
in  their  pronunciation,  may  be  very  far  from  an  ac- 
ceptable standard  of  English. 

In  saying  that  the  standard  of  pronunciation  is  and 
must  be  mere  usage,  the  usage  of  those  who  are  of 
the  highest  social  culture  and  position,  I  am  merely 
uttering  a  truism.  Indeed,  this  usage  is  the  accepted 
standard  of  orthoepy.  The  mere  opinions  of  an}^  per- 
son, however  learned  in  language,  are  as  the  dust  of 
the  balance  when  weighed  against  this  usage.  Upon 
this  point  the  speech  of  a  well-bred  woman,  accustomed 
all  her  life  to  the  best  society,  may  be  of  more  value 
than  the  opinions  of  a  whole  faculty  of  professors, 
although  she  may  not  know  a  vowel  from  a  consonant. 
There  is  but  one  proviso,  —  that  the  society  in  which 
she  has  grown  up  shall  be  the  best  English  society. 

The  complaint,  which  comes  to  me  from  more  than 
one  quarter,  that  the  term  "  Americanism  "  is  ap- 
plied to  peculiar  use  of  language  in  a  derogatory 
sense  is  not  surprising  ;  but  it  is  unreasonable.  For 
English  is  the  language  spoken  by  English  people 
and  while  the  most  important  and  the  most  cultivated 


"AMERICAN'     SPEECH  89 

part  of  the  English  race,  that  which  is  the  direct  con- 
tinuation of  the  original  stock,  remains  in  England, 
where  it  was  first  planted  and  grew  to  maturity,  it  is 
manifestly  to  England  that  we  are  to  go  if  we  would 
find  that  which  is  emphatically  and  unquestionably 
English. 

The  usage  of  polite  society  regulates  pronunciation  ; 
and  that  there  is  very  polite  society  in  Texas  and  in 
California  the  dwellers  in  those  places  most  vehe- 
mently declare,  and  I  shall  not  deny.  But  with  the 
utmost  respect  for  its  intelligence  and  its  politeness, 
we  must  all  admit,  I  think,  that  it  is  not  English 
society,  or  that  it  is  so  in  a  modified  and  limited 
sense  of  the  term.  Therefore,  it  is  not  to  Texas,  or 
to  California,  or  to  Maine,  or  indeed  to  any  place  in 
"  America,"  that  we  should  go  to  find  our  standard 
English,  whether  in  word,  in  idiom,  or  in  pronuncia- 
tion. The  language  spoken  in  those  places  may  be  a 
very  polite  one,  very  admirable  in  every  respect,  but 
it  is  not  necessarily  standard  English  ;  and  just  in  so 
far  as  it  deviates  from  the  language  of  the  most 
cultivated  society  in   England  it  fails  to  be  English. 

And  this,  true  generally  as  to  the  language,  is  es- 
pecially true  as  to  its  pronunciation.  For  idiom,  the 
sense  of  words,  and  the  structure  of  the  sentence  are 
preserved  in  English  literature,  in  a  great  measure  at 
least,  to  all  English-speaking  people.  On  these  points 
the  books  of  the  best  writers  exemplify  a  standard 
o  which  all  may  conform,  and  to  which  in  a  meas- 
ure most  writers  do  conform.  But  books  do  not 
convey,  they  do  not  profess  to  convey,  they  cannot, 
if  their  writers  would,  convey  the  tones  and  inflec- 
tions of  speech.  These  are  almost  inexpressible.  I 
tb^nk  that  they  are  really  quite  inexpressible  by  oi'- 


90  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

thoepists  themselves,  even  to  each  other.  "  Webster  " 
and  "  Worcester  "  are  vakiable  in  this  respect  only 
just  in  so  far  as  they  record  and  are  able  to  express 
the  usage  of  the  best  English  speakers.  Smart,  per- 
haps the  most  unexceptionable  of  British  orthoepists 
that  have  yet  attained  reputation,  has  only  a  like  po- 
sition. In  any  discussion  of  pronunciation  which  is 
not  merely  at  second  hand,  we  must  go  to  the  au- 
thority to  which  "  Webster  "  and  "  Worcester,"  and 
even  Smart  himself,  must  submit;  and  any  person 
who  has  not  direct  acquaintance  with  that,  and  who 
has  not  been  able  to  satisfy  himself,  by  his  own  close 
self-observation  and  by  the  testimony  of  others,  of  the 
delicacy  and  discrimination  of  his  ear,  has  no  right  to 
speak  upon  the  subject,  except  as  a  quoter  of  the  au- 
thority of  others ;  that  is,  not  at  all. 

Moreover,  as  to  pronunciation,  "  American  "  obser- 
vation is  very  untrustworthy ;  for  it  is  in  this  respect 
that  the  speech  of  the  "  average  American,"  how- 
ever "  polite  "  and  "  intelligent "  he  may  be,  is  most 
likely  to  deviate  from  the  true  English  standard.  The 
greater  number  of  "  Americans  "  speak  vilely  ;  they 
have  a  bad  tone  of  voice,  and  very  unpleasant  inflec- 
tions, in  great  variety  of  unpleasantness,  according  to 
the  place  of  their  birth  and  breeding.  It  is  only  in 
a  comparatively  small,  although  actually  numerous, 
circle  of  people  of  high  social  culture,  in  New  Eng- 
land and  New  York,  and  in  the  latter  place  among 
those  of  New  England  birtli,  or  very  direct  descent, 
that  the  true  standard  of  English  speech  is  found  in 
this  country. 

I  do  not  refer  to  rusticity  or  to  provincialism.  A 
man  may  say  sarvant  for  servant,  furnitoor  for  fur* 
niture^  and   even  caouiv  or  coo  for  cou\  and  yet  b« 


"  AMEBl  JAN  "   SPEECH.  91 

free  from  all  the  faults  which  are  most  striking  and 
unpleasant  in  average  "American  "  speech.  Of  these 
faults,  the  first  to  be  remarked,  as  being  both  the 
most  obvious  and  the  most  radical,  is  the  lack  of 
a  free  delivery  of  the  voice.  After  you  have  left 
"  Wallack's,"  or  the  company  of  people  who  speak 
as  the  artists  there  do,  listen  to  the  talk  of  people  in 
the  omnibus  or  the  railway  car  as  you  go  home,  and 
if  your  ear  is  quick  and  perceptive,  you  will  at  onco 
notice  a  difference  in  the  mere  utterance  of  the  voice. 
With  the  former,  it  seems  to  come  from  the  chest, 
higher  or  lower,  with  unconscious  freedom,  and  with- 
out any  other  obstacle  to  the  passage  of  the  air  than 
that  produced  by  the  tongue,  teeth,  and  lips  in  ar- 
ticulating the  syllables.  With  the  latter  there  is  con- 
straint of  one  kind  or  another ;  the  vowel  sounds  are 
not  free,  clear,  pure. 

The  most  conmion  fault  is  that  nasality  which  is  not 
a  snarl,  a  whine,  or  a  grunt,  but  which  yet  partakes 
of  the  qualities  of  all  these  graces.  We  call  it,  or 
rather  others  call  it  for  us,  speaking  through  the  nose. 
But  this  phrase  is  incorrect  as  a  description  of  this 
mode  of  utterance  ;  for  nasality  is  produced  by  not 
speaking  through  the  nose.  That  organ,  instead  of 
being  left  free  to  perform  its  important  office  in  our 
bpeech,  is  more  or  less  closed.  It  is  spoken  through, 
but  not  freely ;  and  therefore  I  have  said  that  the 
faults  of  speech  to  which  I  have  referred  are  all  due  to 
«ome  kind  of  constraint  upon  free  utterance.  If  there 
\vere  no  such  constraint  or  interference  with  the  free 
and  natural  action  of  the  vocal  organs,  there  might 
be  faults  indeed,  but  they  would  not  be  such  as  are 
characteristic  of  so  large  a  proportion  of  "  American  *' 
ipeech. 


92  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Now,  this  constraint  is  due  in  a  great  measure  to 
self-consciousness,  to  awkward  effort.  It  comes,  of 
course,  largely  by  the  mere  contagion  of  bad  speech  ; 
for  so  come  almost  all  such  faults.  Webster  strangely 
attributed  it  to  the  deference  with  which  all  New 
England  people  treat  each  other,  the  consequence  of 
which  was  an  effort  to  subdue  the  bold,  free  utterance 
of  the  voice. ^  The  assigned  cause  is  a  very  fanciful 
one,  so  much  so  that  it  is  hardly  worthy  of  serious 
consideration  ;  and  whatever  may  have  been  the  def- 
erential politeness  of  New  England  manners  in  the 
lexicographer's  youth  (and  there  is  I'eason  for  believ- 
ing that  it  was  great  and  general),  it  is  certain  that 
the  effect  has  survived  the  assigned  cause.  It  is  to 
be  said,  however,  that  in  language,  as  in  all  other  hu- 
man affairs,  effects  do  survive  causes,  which  is  the 
best  reason  that  could  be  given  for  resisting  the  temp- 
tation to  step  out  of  the  right  way  temporarily,  even 
for  a  seemingly  good  reason. 

This  nasality  of  speech,  it  is  almost  needless  to  say, 
is  so  common  that  it  has  come,  very  anjustl}^,  to  be 
regarded  as  a  general  and  distinctive  trait  of  "  Amer- 
ican "  speech.  There  are  households,  there  are  even 
social  circles,  in  which  it  is  never  heard  ;  there  are 
kmilies  of  the  oldest  New  England  stock  in  which 
Ihe  three  living  generations,  from  grandfather  to 
grandchild,  have  not  the  slightest  taint  of  it ;  which 
is  good  evidence  that  there  have  been  families  in  New 

England  from  its  earliest  period  in  which  this  mode 
of  speech  never  was  heard.     And  yet,  as  you  take 

bus  or  car  in  the  afternoon,  hear  the  little  newsboy 
cry  his  Telegra-a-a-em^  prolonging  the  last  syllable, 
Ikud  snarling  and  whining  it  out  until  it  twists  itself 

1  Diuertations  on  the  English  Language,  1789,  page  106. 


"AMERICAN"    SPEECH.  93 

ill  to  your  ears  like  a  rusty  cork-screw !  And  there 
Is  liardly  one  chance  in  a  thousand  that  that  little  fel* 
low  is  not  the  son  of  two  Irish  peasants,  who  have  no 
more  nasality  in  their  speech  than  a  bull  has  in  his 
bellow.  Whence  is  the  direful  influence  that  has 
brought  him  to  his  hideous  utterance  of  that  sylla- 
ble ?  Why  can  he  not  say  gram^  which  is  so  much 
more  easily  said  ?  If  his  parents  had  remained  in  Ire- 
land or  had  gone  to  England,  he  would  have  done  so. 
In  England,  for  example,  if  you  want  a  draught,  half 
porter  and  half  ale,  you  hear  the  waiter  or  the  bar- 
maid call  it  ahf  arC  ahf.  But  go  to  a  "  dairy  "  here 
and  ask  for  a  glass  of  half  cream  and  half  milk, 
and  you  will  hear  it  called  ha-a-ef  a-a-end,  a  strong 
emphasis  being  laid  upon  the  conjunction,  which  is 
whined  out  in  a  little  snarling  voice  ;  whereas  in 
England  it  is  clipped  almost  down  to  'w,  and  the 
voice  is  allowed  to  rest  broadly  upon  the  ah  sound 
of  both  the  halfs. 

What  is  it  that  has  so  vitiated  the  voices  of  most 
"  American  "  men,  and  still  more  of  most  "  Ameri- 
can "  women  ?  For  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  fairei 
Bex  are  in  this  respect  the  least  to  be  admired.  Among 
fifty  men  you  will  find  perhaps  ten  or  a  dozen  who 
will  open  their  mouths  and  speak  clearly  and  freely  ; 
but  among  fifty  women  not  more  than  two  or  three. 

This  it  is  chiefly  which  here  so  diminishes  the 
iharms  of  that  sex  which  in  England  dehghts  the  ear 
even  more  than  it  does  the  eye.  Among  the  general 
public  here,  the  public  of  the  railway  car  and  the  ho- 
tel, the  woman  who  has  not  this  vice  is  a  rare  excep- 
tion. You  shall  see  a  lovely,  bright  creature,  with  all 
the  external  evidences  of  culture  about  her,  a  woman 
who  will  carry  you  captive  so  long  as  she  is  silent ; 


94  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

but  let  her  open  her  pi-etty  lips,  and  she  shall  pieroe 
your  ear  with  a  mean,  tliin,  nasal,  rasping  tone,  by 
which  at  once  you  are  disenchanted.  An  English- 
woman, even  of  the  lower  classes,  will  delight  you 
with  the  rich,  sweet,  smooth,  and  yet  firm  and  cri?r) 
tones  in  which  she  utters  what  may  perhaps  be  very 
bad  "grammar." 

In  addition  to  the  inferior  quality  of  the  voice  in 
most  "  American  "  women,  and  their  defective  utter- 
ance, they  have  a  fault,  and  a  great  one,  which  also 
comes  of  constraint  and  consciousness.  It  is  an  en- 
deavor to  speak  with  emphasis.  This  is  carried  to  such 
an  extent  that  some  women  emphasize  almost  every 
word  they  utter  I  heard  one  the  other  day,  in  speak- 
ing the  following  words,  emphasize  ever}^  one  of  them 
strongly,  with  an  upward  nasal  inflection,  —  every 
one  but  the  last :  "  Say  what  you  will,  folks  will 
talk  ;  an'  do  what  j'ou  will,  you  can't  help  it,"  Now, 
Englishwomen  of  the  lowest  grade  don't  shoot  their 
words  out  at  j^ou  in  that  manner.  They  speak  with 
evenness  and  ease  ;  and  so  unconsciously  they  speak 
well  and  please  the  ear.  To  the  contrary  method 
may  be  attributed  not  a  little  of  the  inferiority  in 
speech  of  "  American  "  women. 

And  since  I  am  telling  unpleasant  truths  about 
ourselves,  I  may  as  well  say  here  that  there  is  more 
of  this  among  both  Western  men  and  women  than 
iimong  thosii  in  other  quarters  of  the  country.  I  re- 
"iently  went  into  one  of  our  most  frequented  theatres 
to  pass  an  hour.  There  was  a  scene  in  progress ; 
and  I  remained  for  a  while  standing  just  within  the 
:loor.  A  lady  was  doing  some  emotional  business 
with  high  manifestation  of  toilet  and  gesticulation 
[  listened  a  few  minutes,  and  then,  turning  to  an  ap 


"  AMERICAN  '"    SPEECH.  96 

parently  oflScial  person,  I  asked  him  who  she  was  ; 
for  the  situations  and  the  personages  of  the  play  were 
unknown  to  me.  "  That,"  he  replied,  in  a  tone  of 
Bome  awe  (for  she  was  the  "  leading  lady,"  and  she 
had  been  playing  to  very  full  houses),  and  looking 
at  me  much  as  if  I  had  asked  a  like  question  as  to 
General  Grant,  or  the  statue  of  Washington  in  the 
B(juare,  "that  is  Miss ,"  naming  a  Western  act- 
ress of  some  celebrity.  I  listened  for  a  few  min- 
utes more,  and  then  fled  the  house.  The  tone  of  her 
voice  propelled  me  from  the  door  like  a  pellet  from 
a  pop-gun.  All  the  emotional  and  sensational  con- 
vulsions into  which  she  could  have  fallen  would  not 
have  allured  me  to  sit  under  her  ministrations  of  the 
English  language  for  one  quarter  of  an  hour.  And 
her  speech  bewrayed  her  as  if  she  had  been  a  female 
Peter ;  for  I  knew,  before  I  was  told,  that  she  must 
have  come  from  the  region  west  of  the  Alleghanies. 

The  constraint  upon  the  delivery  of  the  voice  which 
BO  generally  mars  "  American  "  speech  is  not  con- 
fined to  nasality.  It  shows  itself  in  various  ways,  to 
describe  which  is  very  difficult ;  while  to  represent 
them  by  any  arrangement  of  letters  is  quite  impossi- 
ble. Indeed,  a  like  difficulty  obtains  in  regard  to  the 
description  and  representation  of  correct  enunciation. 
In  nothing  do  words  fail  so  signally  as  in  their  power 
to  describe  words ;  in  nothing  do  letters,  which  are 
supposed  to  represent  sounds,  fall  so  short  as  in  con- 
veying correct  ideas  of  the  sounds  produced  by  the 
human  voice.  This  I  have  remarked  in  regard  to 
pronunciation ;  and  in  regard  to  enunciation  the  dif- 
ficulty is  so  much  greater  that  it  amounts  almost 
to  impossibility.  I  can  only  lepeat  that  constraint, 
leedless  effort,  conscious  or  unconscious,  seems  to  me 


96  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

to  be  the  chief  cause  of  the  common  peculiarities  and 
defects  of  "American"  speech. 

What  may  be  called  a  throaty  utterance  is  quite 
common,  although  it  is  not  nearly  so  much  so  as 
nasality.  It  is  produced  by  a  rigid  tension  of  the 
muscles  of  the  throat  and  glottis,  which  gives  a  hard, 
inflexible  tone  to  the  voice.  It  is  of  all  the  defects 
produced  by  conscious  effort  the  most  striking  in  the 
revelation  of  its  cause.  It  can  be  cured  only,  I  be- 
lieve, by  opening  the  mouth  vride,  and  by  then  ut- 
tering the  syllable  ah  from  the  chest.  This,  indeed, 
is  the  one  great  remedy  for  almost  all  faults  of  utter- 
ance. Put  in  practice  many  times  a  day,  it  will,  by 
patient  trial,  do  more  than  can  be  done  in  any  other 
way  to  make  the  utterance  of  the  voice  pure,  pleas- 
ant, natural.  This  sound  ah  is  primal,  —  the  fun- 
damental sound  of  all  speech.  Without  the  power 
to  utter  it  freely  from  the  chest,  no  one  can  speak 
well,  no  one  can  sing  in  a  style  that  deserves  the 
name  of  singing.  Listen  to  all  vocal  artists  of  a  high 
order,  and  you  will  see  that  they  open  their  mouths 
freely,  and  pour  out  their  voices  upon  this  syllable 
ah  right  from  the  chest.  This  is  what  musical  critics 
mean  when  they  speak  of  a  pure  and  free  delivery  of 
the  voice.  Now,  listen  to  most  of  the  dreadful  ama- 
teur singing  which  your  social  duties  require  you  to 
undergo,  and  you  will  observe  that  the  singers  are 
uttering,  and  generally  with  a  guttui'al  tone,  oo  and 
ugh  and  igh  and  egh^  and  all  other  vowel  sounds  ex- 
sept  ah.  Besides  this,  you  will  find  that  they  under- 
take to  sing  the  consonants ;  that  is,  all  of  them  that 
can  be  prolonged,  the  wi's,  w's,  «^'s,  Z's,  etc.  On  the 
contrary,  the  good  singer  makes  the  consonants  as 
Bhort  and  as  crisp  as  possible,  mere  sharp  divisions 


"  AMERICAN  "   SPEECH.  97 

between  tlie  vowels.  Now,  a  good  speaker  does  the 
Bame.  Of  course,  the  vowels  are  not  prolonged  by 
him  as  they  are  in  singing,  but  they  ai-e  uttered  with 
the  same  purity  and  freedom,  and  the  consonants  are 
made  mere  dividing  lines,  the  means  of  sharp  and 
clear  syllabification. 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is 
often  a  remarkable  unlikeness  in  the  same  person  be- 
tween the  speaking  and  the  singing  voice  and  the 
speaking  and  the  singing  utterance.  The  former  is 
sometimes  thin,  harsh,  and  constrained,  while  the  lat- 
ter is  comparatively  rich,  sweet,  and  free ;  and  what 
is  more  remarkable,  a  man  will  speak  tenor  and  sing 
bass,  and  the  contrary.  The  pitch  and  quality  of  the 
singing  voice  seem  to  depend,  not  at  all  upon  the  size 
of  the  man,  of  his  chest,  or  even  of  his  throat,  but 
upon  the  nose  and  the  frontal  sinuses,  I  have  re- 
marked that  most  bass  singers  have  these  largely 
developed,  and  that  tenors  generally  have  straight 
or  at  least  small  noses  and  smooth  foreheads.  Not- 
withstanding the  difference  sometimes  found  between 
the  singing  and  the  speaking  voice,  what  I  have  just 
uaid  in  regard  to  the  analogy  between  them,  and  the 
advantage  of  training  the  latter  as  the  best  Italian 
teachers  train  the  former,  —  as  to  utterance  at  least, 
—  is,  I  believe,  sound  and  of  general  application. 

In  regard  to  the  pronunciation  and  enunciation  of 
words,  the  striking  defect  of  common  "  American " 
speech  is  again  due  to  constraint,  to  conscious  effort. 
The  "  average  American  "  tries  to  pronounce  too  dis- 
tinctly. He  is  conscious  about  his  syllables,  and 
seems  to  talk  with  the  spelling-book  before  his  eyes. 
He  is  in  constant  fear  of  the  "•  dictionary,"  that  Jug- 
gernaut of  speech.     The  result  is  that  while  he  may 


98  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Blight  some  syllables  unconsciously  he  gives  undue 
emphasis  and  a  ridiculous  importance  to  others,  which 
are  generally  those  tliat  are  passed  over  most  lightly 
and  trippingly  by  the  best  English  speakers.  This  is 
remarkably  the  case  in  the  course  of  a  discussion,  even 
of  the  most  casual  and  informal  character.  Then 
do  the  speakers  dwell  upon  those  important  words, 
"for,"  "to,"  "with,"  "by,"  "and;"  then  do  they 
lay  themselves  out  largely  upon  the  prefixes,  "  ex," 
"  in,"  "  con,"  "  ad,"  and  the  like.  It  is  amazing  and 
amusing  to  hear  them  say  ex-clude,  in-clude,  con-fer, 
ad-mit,  separating  the  prefix  from  the  following  syl- 
lables, and  even  laying  some  emphasis  upon  it,  in- 
stead of  giving  it  a  light  and  slight,  although  crisp 
and  clear,  enunciation. 

Having  had  occasion  to  refer  to  "  Martin  Chuzzle- 
wit "  on  the  day  on  which  this  chapter  was  written, 
but  for  a  purpose  not  connected  with  it,  I  was  struck 
as  I  turned  the  leaves  with  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Dick- 
ens's acute  and  close  observation  in  this  respect.  He 
was  a  caricaturist,  and  generally  a  gross  caricaturist, 
although  a  most  humorous  one;  but  he  was  an  un- 
commonly keen  observer,  and  his  perception  was  quite 
equal  to  his  humor.  There  are  passages  in  "Martin 
Chuzzlewit "  which  are  rather  rough  reading  for  the 
American  eagle,  but  many  of  them  embody  truth 
which  is  well  worth  the  consideration  of  the  very 
'Americans"  to  whom  they  will  give  the  greates 
offense.  But  to  turn  to  the  illustration  which  the 
book  affords  of  the  remarks  I  have  just  made  upon 
enunciation.  General  Choke  says  that  he  is  "  ac-tive 
and  spry "  in  his  country's  service,  and  the  land 
agent  at  Eden  that  "  there  ain't  no  such  location  in 
the  territoi^ry  of  the   U-nited  States."     The   genera. 


"AMERICAN"    SPEECH.  99 

again  says  to  Martin,  "  I  wish  you  joy  of  your 
po-session.  You  air  now,  Sir,  a  denizen  of  the  most 
powerful  and  highly  civilized  do-minion  that  has  ever 
graced  the  world, — a  do-minion,  Sir,  where  man  is 
bound  to  man  in  one  vast  bond  of  equal  love  and 
truth.  May  you.  Sir,  be  worthy  of  your  a-dopted 
country."  The  unnamed  gentleman  who  introduces 
the  great  Mrs.  Hominy  says  that  she  "belongs  toe 
one  of  our  most  aristocratic  families,"  and  when 
he  leaves  her  with  Martin  wishes  her  a  "  pleasant 
pro-gress."  Captain  Kedgick  says,  "  Our  people  like 
ex-citement,"  and  that  nobody  "  ever  comes  back 
a-live  "  from  Eden.  General  Fladdock,  in  New  York, 
exclaims,  "•  Oh,  the  con-ventionalities  of  that  a-mazing 
Europe !  "  and  again,  "  the  ex-clusiveness,  the  pride, 
the  form,  the  ceremony," — emphasizing,  Dickens 
adds,  "  the  article  "  more  vigorously  at  every  repeti- 
tion. 

Amongst  his  caricaturings  Dickens  has  caricatured 
men  and  things  in  "  America  "  grossly  ;  but  this  is 
hardly  caricature.  I  hear  speech  like  this  often ;  gen- 
erally in  public  places,  but  sometimes,  although  very 
rarely,  even  in  the  most  cultivated  social  circles. 
I  know  a  lady  belonging  by  all  admission  to  those 
circles  who  never  says,  "  I  don't  believe  it,"  but,  "  I 
don't  be-lieve  it."  The  emphasis  which  Dickens 
makes  General  Fladdock  lay  upon  "  the "  is  very 
common,  particularly  among  public  speakers,  when 
they  are  enumerating  facts,  principles,  or  planks  in 
a  platform.  But  even  by  other  speakers  and  at  other 
times  the  word  is  pronounced  like  "  thee  "  instead  of 
'  the." 

Much  of  all  this  comes  from  public-school  teach- 
ing, and  from  the  tyranny  oV  the  spelling-book  and 


100  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

the  dictionary.  Instead  of  speaking  without  thought 
as  to  their  speech,  these  speakers  are  trying  to  be 
exact,  to  talk  like  a  book,  to  speak  dictionaiy  Eng- 
lish. A  word  to  them  is  not  simply  a  sound  which 
expresses  a  thought  or  a  thing,  but  something  which 
is  spelled,  and  which  they  must  carefully  pronounce 
according  to  its  spelling.  This  is  illustrated  by  the 
strange  work  that  is  made  with  proper  names. 

It  is  a  rule  in  all  languages,  and  among  all  peo- 
ples, that  the  pronunciation  of  proper  names  is,  so  to 
speak,  arbitrary ;  that  is,  that  their  pronunciation  is 
decided  entirely  by  custom,  without  regard  to  the 
way  in  which  they  are  spelled.  But  in  "  America," 
recently,  that  is,  in  the  United  States,  the  custom  baa 
come  up  of  pronouncing  them  rigidly  according  to 
their  spelling.  Thus  we  not  only  have  War-wick  and 
Wor-ces-ter  instead  of  WaricTc  and  Wooster^  but  the 
Shawangunk  Mountains,  which  in  our  youth  were  the 
Shongo  Mountains,  are  now  ASAa-waw-^ww^,  with  the  n 
and  the  k  thrust  into  our  ears  ;  and  poor  Lake  Win- 
nipiseogee,  instead  of  its  old  name,  Winipisaukie,  has 
every  syllable  given  to  it  that  can  be  extorted  from 
its  letters  by  a  school-ma'am.  Delhi,  a  name  ab- 
surdly given  to  a  town  in  Alleghany  County,  is  called 
Dell-high^  when  its  real  name  is  as  nearly  as  possible 
Daily.  Still  further  west,  Terre  Haute  is  called 
Terry  Hut.,  an  amazing  conformity  to  the  spelling- 
book.  If  an  uneducated  man  were  to  write  its  real 
name  phonographically.  Tare  Hoht.,  he  would  not  be 
nearly  so  ridiculous  as  those  who  find  its  name,  not 
in  a  word,  but  in  an  assemblage  of  printed  signs.  In 
the  city  of  New  York  there  has  been  of  very  late 
years  a  remarkable  change  of  name  effected  by  thi« 
rule  of  spelling-book.    "  What,"  said  to  me  an  elderlj 


"AMERICAN"    SPEECH.  101 

gentleman,  a  member  of  a  highly  respected  old  New 
York  family,  "  what  do  these  people  mean  by  Dez- 
bros-sez  Street  ?  There 's  no  such  street.  The  name 
is  De  Broose  Street."  He  then  informed  me  that  the 
street  was  named  after  a  family  whose  name  was 
Bpelled  "  Desbrosses,"  but  pi'onounced  De  Broose,  and 
that  until  it  appeared  on  the  street  cars  it  was  al- 
ways so  pronounced.  I  myself  have  been  astonished 
to  hear  the  family  name  of  an  old  friend  and  college 
classmate  of  mme — Van  Schaick,  which  time  out  of 
mind  was  pronounced  Von  Scoik  —  lately  spelling- 
booked  into  Van  Shake.  This  solicitude  to  conform 
sound  to  letter  has  become  a  disease  among  us.  It 
exists  in  no  other  country ;  and  here  it  is  due  chiefly 
to  common  school  teaching. 

To  those  who  have  gone  with  me  thus  far  it  will 
be  now  hardly  necessary  to  repeat  that  the  mere  fact 
that  certain  pronunciations  ai'e  common  among  "  po- 
lite "  and  "  educated  "  people  in  various  parts  of  the 
United  States  cannot  be  accepted  as  at  all  decisive 
upon  the  question  as  to  the  correct  pi'onunciation  of 
\  single  English  word.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must 
lot  be  assumed  that  even  in  England  or  in  London, 
where  the  best  results  of  English  culture  have  been 
Drought  together  for  many  generations,  and  where 
'.hey  have  a  permanent  establishment  and  a  tradi- 
tional continuity  of  influence,  there  is  a  rigid  uni- 
formity of  pronunciation,  a  standard  by  which  every 
person  is  or  may  be  tried,  at  the  peril  of  being  con- 
demned as  illiterate  or  ill-bred  for  lack  of  conformity. 
Such  criticism  of  each  other's  language  is  not  at  all 
■.he  habit  of  people  of  the  best  culture  and  breeding, 
who,  even  as  to  their  own  pronunciation  as  well  as 
their  "grammar,"  are  generally  quite  thoughtless,  if 


102  EVERY-DAY    KNGLISH. 

not  indifferent.  They  speak  and  write  unconsciously 
the  language  that  they  hear  spoken  around  them,  and 
therewith  the}'^  are  content.  Professor  Whitney  says, 
in  his  "Elements  of  English  Pronunciation,"  that 
"  he  who  cannot  take  to  pieces  his  own  native  ut- 
terance lacks  the  true  foundation  on  which  every- 
thing else  should  repose."  But  it  should  be  remarked 
that,  unless  I  misapprehend  him,  this  refers  not  to 
correct  pronunciation,  but  to  the  comprehension  of 
phonetics.  Among  those  who  speak  the  best  Eng- 
lish there  is  not  one  in  a  thousand  who  is  more  ca- 
pable of  taking  his  own  utterance  to  pieces  than  of 
conjugating  a  Sanskrit  verb  of  the  seventh  class;  and 
this  I  believe  no  one  would  more  readily  admit  than 
Professor  Whitney. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

READING. 

In  the  course  of  school  studies,  reading  usually 
follows  spelling  ;  and  I  believe  that  it  is  generally 
assumed  that  ability  to  spell  must  precede  the  abil- 
ity to  read.  If  by  ability  to  spell  is  meant  that  of 
spelling  correctly  according  to  the  received  standard, 
this  assumption  is  not  well  founded,  as  will  be  seen 
upon  a  moment's  reflection.  In  the  city  of  New 
York,  fur  example,  there  are  very  few  persons,  if  any, 
among  those  above  the  very  lowest  condition  of  life, 
who  cannot  read,  and  who  do  not  read  more  or  less 
daily.  Newspapers  are  in  all  hands.  But  of  these 
people,  there  are  a  great  many,  and,  if  we  are  to  be- 
lieve the  complaints  of  the  spelling  reformers,  there 
must  be  a  very  large  proportion,  who,  if  they  were 
jailed  upon  to  write  a  letter,  or  to  take  part  in  a 
'spelling-bee,"  would  surely  be  guilty  of  some  great 
mistakes  in  orthography. 

To  return  to  our  newspaper  readers,  no  proof  other 
than  their  daily  performances  is  required  that  spell- 
ing, correct  spelling,  is  not  a  necessary  accompani- 
ment of  the  ability  to  read,  and  therefore  need  not 
precede  it.  Moreover,  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  of 
the  many  (absolutely  many,  but  comparatively  few) 
who  would  themselves  be  unable  to  wnte  a  short 
Bentence  without  spelling  a  word  or  two  unfashion- 
ibly,  nearly  all  would  be  disturbed  if  they  found  the 


104  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

words  over  Avliich  tliey  tripped  printed  unusually. 
The  very  mistakes  which  they  made  themselves  would 
annoy  them  in  print.  They  might  not  be  able  to 
point  out  tlie  errors  with  certainty,  but  the  words 
containing  them  would  not  "  look  right."  In  making 
this  assertion  I  am  not  speaking  upon  probabilities, 
but  upon  the  result  of  observation  and  experiment. 
The  explanation  of  this  apparent  paradox  is  that, 
although  we  begin  to  spell  before  we  begin  to  read, 
we  learn  spelling  chiefly  by  reading.  It  is  not  by 
standing  in  a  row  and  saying  v-a-1  val,  e,  vale,  t-u  too, 
valetoo,  d-i  di,  valetoodi,  n-a  nay,  valetoodinay,  r-i  ri, 
valetoodinayri,  a-n  an,  valetoodinayrian,  that  we  mas- 
ter our  written  language.  It  is  not  by  remembering, 
or,  as  some  folk  say,  by  "  memorizing,"  the  syllabic 
construction  of  words  that  we  learn  to  read  them  or 
to  write  them.  The  pretense  of  some  of  the  reform- 
ers that  we  know  the  written  form  of  the  words  of 
our  vocabulary  only  by  such  a  sheer  effort  of  memory 
is  absurd.  This  knowledge,  like  our  speech,  comes 
upon  us  insensibly,  by  use.  We  learn  to  speak  by 
speaking  ;  we  learn  to  read  by  reading ;  and  we  learn 
to  spell  correctly  by  reading  words  correctly  spelled. 
Those  who  read  most  spell  most  correctly  and  readily. 
I  tliink  this  rule  will  be  found  absolute ;  allowance 
being  made  only  for  the  peculiarities  of  some  per- 
sons who  are  not  ready  at  jDerceiving  form  in  any- 
thing, and  for  slips  which  in  others  are  due  to  lack  of 
attention  to  the  forms  of  some  few  words.  There 
are  intelligent  peoj)le  who,  as  I  have  before  said, 
make  mistakes  in  spelling;  but  all  intelligent  people 
are  not  constant  readers.  Some  who  can  manage  a 
great  business,  lead  a  political  party,  or  command  ar 
army  rarely  open  a  book.     All  of  those  things  could 


READING.  105 

be  done  by  men  who  could   not  spell  "  valetudina 
rian,"  and  who  would  write   "college"  eoUedge,  as 
John  Locke  did.     Reading  and  writing  are  not  the 
beginning  or  even  the  end  of  all  things. 

Learning  to  read  is  now,  however,  the  first  step  to 
knowledge,  if  not  to  education.  I  say  now,  because  it 
was  not  always  so.  Before  the  invention  of  printing 
from  types,  and  when  written  books  were  extremely 
Bcarce,  so  scarce  that  one  was  a  present  fit  for  a  king, 
readers,  of  course,  were  rare.  It  would  be  a  great 
mistake,  however,  to  assume  that  knowledge  and 
thought  were  equally  rare  in  those  days.  Among  the 
Greeks,  to  whom  we  are  yet  going  to  school  in  phi- 
losophy, in  literature,  and  in  art,  the  number  of  read- 
ers, even  in  the  educated  classes,  was  not  large.  Of 
the  men  who  could,  and  who  did,  enjoy,  appreciate, 
and  even  intelligently  criticise  a  play  by  ^schylus 
or  Sophocles  on  its  first  performance,  or  an  oration 
by  Demosthenes,  very  few  ever  read,  and  a  very  large 
proportion  must  have  been  entirely  unable  to  read, 
them,  at  least  with  facility.  Instruction  was  then 
given  orally  ;  and  men  remembered  and  thought 
about  what  they  heard.  The  world's  work,  the 
higher  part  of  it  at  least,  is  done  by  thinking ;  and 
education  is  not  the  imparting  of  knowledge,  but 
the  teaching  to  think.  Knowledge  can  be  obtained 
by  special  effort  at  special  times,  when  it  is  needed ; 
but  the  ability  to  use  it,  the  ability  to  think  rightly, 
comes  only  by  exercise  and  by  discipline  in  thought. 

But  nowadays  we  must  all  learn  to  read;  and  the 
cry  goes  up  that  learning  to  read,  to  read  English  at 
least,  is  a  slow,  toilsome,  painful  task.  There  is  a 
demand  for  some  easy  way  of  learning  to  read  ;  es- 
says are  written  upon  the  subject,  and  books  of  in- 


106  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Btruction  upon  patent  plans  are  published  ;  one  of 
them  that  I  have  seen  is  called  "  Reading  without 
Tears."  It  seems  to  me  that  the  demand  and  the  ex- 
pectation upon  which  it  is  founded  are  alike  unrea- 
sonable. Learning  to  read  must  be  a  slow  process  ; 
and  those  who  are  inclined  to  weep  over  toil  must  not 
expect  to  learn  to  read  without  tears.  The  acquire- 
ment of  any  knowledge  or  skill  that  is  worth  acquir- 
ing comes  only  by  patient,  persevering  labor,  which 
is  shortened,  indeed,  according  to  the  intelligence  of 
the  learner,  but  the  lack  of  which  no  intelligence,  no 
contrivance,  can  supply.  With  w^hat  semblance  of 
reason  is  it  expected  that  learning  to  read  English 
should  be  easier  than  it  is  to  a  person  wnth  a  musical 
organization  to  learn  to  read  music,  or  that  it  can  be 
learned  in  any  other  way  than  that  in  which  music 
is  learned?  And,  although  in  music  every  sign  has 
a  fixed  value,  one  sign  meaning  one  sound  and  no 
other,  and  even  the  duration  and  succession  of  the 
sounds  being  indicated  by  other  absolutely  certain 
signs,  the  acquirement  of  even  very  moderate  skill  in 
reading  music  comes  only  by  long  and  steady  prac- 
tice. Every  person  with  a  voice  and  a  musical  ear 
can  sing  after  a  certain  fashion,  and  so  every  person 
can  speak;  but  reading  music  with  an  instrument  or 
even  with  the  voice  is  a  very  different  matter.  It  is 
earned,  not  by  the  observation  of  certain  rules,  al- 
ihough  rules  must  be  observed,  but  by  practice,  by 
:rying  and  failing,  and  trying  again  and  doing  a  lit- 
tle bettei',  and  so  on  again  and  again,  until,  according 
to  the  old  adage,  practice  makes  perfect.  Thus,  and 
thus  only,  it  seems  to  me,  can  reading  be  learned,  all 
vhe  complaints  and  protests  and  all  the  patent  plans 
uxid  reading-without-tears  books  to  the  contrary  not 


READING.  107 

iv^ithstanding.  Speech  of  our  mother  tongue  we  learn 
easily,  unconsciously,  "  naturally,"  as  we  say ;  but 
reading  is  a  very  different  matter :  it  is  a  mastery  of 
the  meaning  of  arbitrary  and  conventional  signs. 

Tims  far  as  to  reading  silently,  which  every  child 
is  taught  who  is  taught  at  all.  Reading  aloud  seems 
almost  gone  out  of  fashion,  except  among  those  who 
do  it  in  some  way  professionally.  It  is  no  longer 
really  taught  in  schools,  or  it  is  taught  in  very  few. 
A  single  generation  has  seen  it  pass  away.  The  rea- 
son of  this  is  twofold,  and  is  strange.  For  it  is,  first, 
the  great  diffusion  of  education,  and,  next,  the  great 
increase  in  reading.  Reading  aloud  cannot  be  taught 
in  large  classes ;  and  consequently  in  public  schools 
and  in  large  private  schools  it  has  fallen  into  neglect. 
Not  that  there  is  no  pretense  made  of  teaching  it, 
although  even  of  this  thei-e  is  comparatively  little  ; 
but  that  there  has  ceased  to  be  that  individual  prac- 
tice before  the  teacher,  guided  by  his  example  as 
well  as  informed  by  his  instruction,  which  used  to 
be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  important  of  daily 
school  exercises.  This  is  much  to  be  regretted.  Bet- 
ter let  two  "branches"  go  than  neglect  reading  aloud. 
In  fixing  attention,  in  leading  to  exactness  of  appre- 
hension, in  power  of  bringing  the  pupil's  mind  into 
}i  flexible  adaptability  to  the  thought  presented  to  it, 
there  is  no  exercise  that  can  effectively  take  the  place 
©f  reading  aloud. 

We  cannot  read  anything  aloud  well,  that  is,  with 
pi-oper  inflection  and  emphasis,  without  thoroughly 
anderstanding  it.  A  pupil  cannot  scramble  through 
and  skip  over  what  he  knows  that  he  is  likely  to  be 
called  upon  to  read  aloud.  It  is  among  the  very 
.est  of  educational  disciplines.     Besides  this,  with  a 


108  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

competent  teacher,  it  is,  I  need  hardly  say,  the  very 
best  means  of  acquiring  that  clear  enunciation  which 
is  one  of  the  greatest  beauties  of  speech,  and  which 
any  observant  person  will  find  largely  lacking  in  the 
younger  people  of  the  present  day.  Good  English 
speaking  and  good  English  writing  come,  except  in 
cases  of  rare  inborn  faculty,  chiefly  by  the  reading 
aloud  of  good  English  authors  under  the  supervision 
of  a  teacher  who  himself  or  herself  speaks  good  Eng- 
lish and  understands  those  authors.  Of  such  teach- 
ers, how  many  may  be  found  in  our  public  or  in  our 
private  schools  ?  Of  such  teaching,  or  of  the  attempt 
at  such  teaching,  how  much? 

Reading  aloud  has  fallen  into  disuse  in  families 
and  in  the  social  circle,  because  we  read  so  much. 
The  newspaper  and  the  cheap  novel  have  combined 
to  bring  this  about.  We  rise  from  the  table ;  we 
seize  each  of  us  a  newspaper  or  a  new  paper-covered 
novel,  and  we  plunge  into  their  pages,  and  sit  unso- 
ciably  silent.  We  even  resent  the  reading  of  any- 
thing aloud  to  us,  because  it  interrupts  our  own  self- 
ish solitary  pleasure,  and  because  we  think  that  we 
could  have  read  the  passage  so  much  more  quickly  by 
ourselves.  The  pleasure  of  a  common  enjoyment  is 
disregarded  in  favor  of  our  own  greedy  devouring  of 
our  silent,  solitary  mental  meal;  the  charm  of  the 
sound  of  the  human  voice,  conveying  to  us  shades  of 
meaning  and  points  of  emphasis,  is  undervalued,  and 
=eems  to  be  passing  away  as  one  of  the  delights  of 
life.  Silent  reading  is  even  destroying  companion- 
sliip,  which  now  is  to  be  found  in  perfection  only 
among  men  at  their  clubs.  Newspapers,  thus  read 
are  gradually  extinguishing  conversation.  One  advan« 
tage  of  a  long  dinner  is  that  it  compels  those  around 


READING.  109 

the  table  to  leave  books  and  newspapers  out  of  their 
Hands  while  they  are  there,  and  talk  to  each  other 
to  their  best  ability.  As  to  talking  at  a  "reception  " 
or  a  ball,  that  is  impossible  in  any  coherent,  intelli- 
gent, almost  in  any  intelligible  fashion.  And  thus  by 
silent  reading  and  the  neglect  of  conversation,  lan- 
guage itself  is  coming  to  a  kind  of  disuse.  For  lan- 
guage is  speech,  not  letters ;  and  we  cannot  really 
enjoy  it  or  master  it  by  hearing  sermons  and  lectures 
and  plays,  and  thus  getting  our  speaking  done  for  us, 
as  the  Turks  get  their  dancing  done  for  them,  by 
others. 

The  foregoing  remarks  upon  reading  aloud  when 
first  published  brought  such  hearty  expressions  of  as- 
sent from  so  many  and  such  various  quarters  as  made 
it  plain  that  I  chanced  to  touch  a  subject  upon  which 
many  intelligent  people  had  been  thinking.  Others 
were  manifestly  set  a-thinking  about  what  before  had 
been  as  far  out  of  mind  to  them  as  an  undiscovered 
planet.  The  warmest  commendation  came  to  me 
from  women,  who  protested  against,  and  asked  me  to 
scourge,  the  silent  reading  of  newspapers.  But  while 
to  a  certain  degree  sympathizing  with  these  com- 
plainants, I  remember  that  I  am  not  here  as  a  censor 
either  of  manners  or  of  morals,  and  therefore  cannot 
undertake  to  scourge  anything  or  anybody.  I  know 
that  wives  complain  that  if  they  are  kind  enough  to 
read  aloud  to  their  husbands,  the  gentlemen  begin  to 
nod,  and  sometimes  are  even  impolite  enough  to 
Bnore  ;  and  I  have  heard  that  even  when  the  parties 
make  an  interchange  of  places  as  reader  and  listener 
something  like  an  exchange  of  the  other  performance 
takes  place  also.  Yet  jt  is  said  that  this  drowsiness, 
SO   apparently    overwhelming,    ^s    instantly   dispelled 


110  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

by  the  entrance  of  an  agreeable,  smooth-spoken  ac- 
quaintance, who  has  his  head  well  stored  with  gossip ; 
which,  if  it  be  true,  shows  either  that  gossip  is  more 
generally  interesting  than  the  contents  of  books  or  of 
newspapers,  —  although  many  of  the  latter  and  some 
of  the  former  seem  to  aim  little  higher  than  the  gos- 
siping level, —  or  that  there  is  some  soporific  influ- 
ence in  the  voice  and  style  of  the  average  reader.  1 
am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  both  these  conclusions 
are  measurably  true.  My  concern,  however,  is  only 
with  the  latter. 

It  is  true  that  very  few  people  can  read  even  an 
article  in  a  newspaper  in  a  style  which  engages  the 
attention  of  their  hearers.  It  is  true  that  those  who 
can  read  aloud  for  fifteen  minutes  without  sending 
their  hearers  to  sleep  or  out  of  the  room  are  the  rare 
exceptions.  Whoever  thinks  about  the  subject  at  all 
must  wonder  if  these  people  read  to  themselves  as 
they  read  aloud,  and  if  they  do,  what  must  be  their 
appreciation  of  the  writer's  thought,  —  what  their  en- 
joyment of  it.  For  as  Ave  think  in  words,  so  do  we 
read  silently  with  such  mental  emphasis  and  such  in- 
flections as  accord  with  our  understanding  of  the  au- 
thor who  is  addressing  us  through  our  eyes.  It  is 
said  that  Mr.  Tennyson  insists  strongly  that  his 
poetry  can  be  understood  and  enjoyed  only  by  being 
read  in  a  certain  way,  and  that  generally  the  effect 
of  rhythm  and  rhythmic  emphasis  that  he  had  in 
mind  when  writing  is  destroyed  even  by  the  best 
readers.  And  if  the  reports  of  his  own  style  of  read- 
ing, when  he  undertakes  to  show  what  is  the  hidden 
music  of  his  verse,  be  true,  then  must  the  world  at 
large  be  entirely  deaf  and  dumb  to  the  Tennys  mese 
poetical  language.     Hearers  of  intelligence  and  culb 


READING.  Ill 

tire,  who  are  accustomed  to  the  best  English  speech 
and  t)  the  best  reading,  can  hardly  listen  with  dec- 
orously sober  faces  as  the  laureate  reads  bis  own 
verses.  His  accent  is  so  forced,  his  inflections  are 
BO  grotesque,  and  even  bis  pronunciation  becomes  so 
strange,  tliat  to  most  of  his  hearers  (of  whom  there 
have  not  been  many)  all  the  charm  of  his  poetry  dis- 
appears. 

In  the  case  of  Tennyson  this  effect  is  owing  to 
Bonie  peculiar  notion  that  be  has  adopted,  some  elocu- 
tionary theory  or  crotchet.  That  he  is  wi-ong  is  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  eminent  as  he  is  among  the  poets  of 
the  day,  and  sure  as  we  may  be  that  he  thoroughly 
understands  what  be  reads.  This  is  made  certain  by 
the  mere  fact  that  bis  reading  has  such  an  effect  upon 
intelligent  hearers,  an  effect  so  injurious  to  bis  poetry. 
For,  having  this  effect,  it  fails  in  the  one  single  pur- 
pose of  reading  aloud,  which  is  to  convey  by  clear 
enunciation  and  natural  inflections  of  voice  the  mean- 
ing of  what  is  read  to  an  intelligent,  or  even  to  a  not 
very  intelligent,  bearer.  Intelligence,  learning,  liter- 
ary skill,  singly  or  united,  do  not  give  the  ability  to 
do  this.  I  think  that  the  worst  reading  that  I  have 
heard  was  from  men  who,  as  thinkers,  as  scholars, 
and  as  writers,  were  far  above  their  fellows,  even  in 
the  educated  classes.  They  read  with  a  heavy  mono- 
tone, ^pitched  high  or  low,  but  in  most  cases  low,  and 
with  an  absence  of  intelligent  emphasis  that  made 
their  performance  about  as  interesting  as  the  drone 
of  a  bagpipe.  Well  taught  in  many  things  they 
had  not  been  taught  to  read ;  or  they  bad  a  defect 
of  ear  which  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  learn. 
For  it  i(}  just  as  impossible  for  seme  people  to  learn 
to  rsad  aloud,  with  good  emphasis  and  discretion,  aa 


112  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

it  is  for  others  to  learn  to  sing.  The  number  of  the 
former,  however,  is  very  much  smaller  than  that  of 
the  latter. 

And  what  is  good  vocal  reading,  that  it  is  so  neg- 
lected by  many  and  so  nearly  impossible  to  some  ? 
It  is  simply  the  natural  utterance  of  the  sentences, 
read  according  to  their  meaning.  All  that  is  neces 
Bary  to  good  reading  aloud  is  an  intelligent  apprehen- 
sion of  what  is  read,  and  an  utterance  of  it  with  such 
emphasis  and  such  inflection  as  are  in  natural  accord- 
ance with  the  meaning  of  each  clause,  sentence,  and 
passage.  Yet  the  doing  of  this  simple  thing  perfectly 
well  is  a  rare  accomplishment,  and  one  which  is  found 
rather  more  rarely  among  professed  elocutionists  than, 
proportionately,  among  intelligent  and  educated  peo- 
ple who  make  no  such  professions.  So  it  is  said  that 
to  walk  well  —  well  enough,  for  instance,  to  pass 
across  the  stage  without  seeming  awkward — is  some- 
thing that  most  actors  have  to  learn,  although  all  that 
is  required  is  a  natural  and  easy  movement  of  the 
body  and  limbs  ;  and  that  to  stand  perfectly  still  with 
ease  and  dignity  upon  the  stage  is  one  of  the  rarest 
of  theatrical  accomplishments.  The  reason  of  this  is 
that  self-consciousness,  or  the  loss  of  self-possession, 
or  the  effort  to  be  pleasing,  —  to  do  something,  and 
not  simply  to  be,  —  begets  awkwardness,  uneasiness, 
and  leads  to  indulgence  in  little  tricks  and  mentions, 
all  of  which  are  inconsistent  with  grace  and  dignity. 

Something  of  the  same  kind  takes  place  wlien  most 
people  read  aloud.  They  think  they  must  do  some- 
thing more  than  to  speak  naturally  what  is  before 
vihem  ;  and  thus  they  become  either  heavily  monoto- 
nous or  absurdly  emphatic.  In  either  case,  their  ef 
fort  is  disagreeably  apparent ;  we  see  that  they  are 


READING.  118 

thinking  of  themselves  (as  awkward  people  gen- 
erally do)  instead  of  what  they  are  about.  For  if 
they  had  in  mind  only  what  is  before  their  eyes,  and 
spoke  that  out  simply  and  naturally,  they  would  read 
well  enough  to  enable  their  hearers  to  understand 
and  to  enjoy  moderately  what  they  might  read. 
The  voice  might  be  harsh,  or  otherwise  unpleasant; 
the  pronunciation  might  not  be  that  of  the  best 
speakers  ;  but  still  the  reading  would  be  tolerably 
good.  It  would  be  natural ;  and  the  humblest  and 
most  ignorant  and  uneducated  persons,  speaking  with 
the  utterance  and  with  the  inflections  that  nature 
prompts  in  them,  always  speak  with  proper  emphasis 
and  proper  inflection.  Indeed,  to  read  and  to  speak, 
in  those  respects,  as  they  do,  as  anybody  does  (for 
in  this  respect  all  are  alike),  is  the  last  and  highest 
attainment  of  elocutionary  art. 

I  remember  a  very  simple  but  very  striking  and 
significant  example  of  this,  which  occurred  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  my  reading  class  at  school.  We  were  all 
under  twelve  years  of  age.  Our  master,  not  a  pro- 
fessed elocutionist,  was  one  of  the  very  best  readers, 
one  of  the  most  effective,  I  ever  heard,  and  he  taught 
us  "with  great  care.  On  the  occasion  to  which  I  have 
referred,  a  passage  from  the  tragedy  "Pizarro"  was 
read,  in  which  Pizarro,  if  I  remember  aright,  ap- 
proaching his  friend's  cell,  calls  "  Alonzo  !  Alonzo  !  " 
The  passage  was  passed  by  the  teacher  from  boy  to 
boy  without  remark,  but  we  all  saw  that  something 
was  wrong,  and  every  one  tried  to  do  the  right  thing, 
the  result  being,  as  I  vaguely  remember,  more  forced, 
unnatural  reading  than  had  been  heard  from  us  in  a 
long  while.  At  last  one  boy  uttered,  with  free  voice, 
the  first  "  Alonzo "    with   a  free  upward   inflection, 


114  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

and  the  second  with  an  inflection  as  freely  downward. 
"  That 's  right,"  immediately  said  our  teacher ;  "  that  '3 
what  I  've  been  trying  for  all  the  time.  I  wanted  to 
Bee  if  there  was  not  one  boy  among  j'ou  that  would 
Bay  that  just  as  if  he  himself  was  calling,  'Tom! 
Tom  ! '  "  One  would  think  that  a  class  of  boys  who 
were  calling  to  each  other  so  many  times  daily  would, 
any  and  all  of  them,  have  read  at  least  such  a  passage 
naturally.  But  no  ;  the  notion  that  reading  must  be 
something  else  than  a  natural  expression  of  the  sense 
of  what  is  read  seems  to  take  possession  of  almost  all 
readers,  and  of  none  so  strongly  as  the  young  and  the 
uncultivated, — I  do  not  mean  unlearned.  A  woman 
who  knows  no  language  but  her  own,  and  that  im- 
perfectly, who  has  acquired  very  little  book  knowl- 
edge, but  who  is  intelligent  and  cultivated,  may  speak 
charmingly,  and  read  impressively.  This,  however, 
she  will  do  only  by  the  command  of  a  good  voice,  by 
a  thorough  understanding  of  what  she  reads,  and  by 
losing  herself  in  her  reading. 

It  will  always  be  found  that  poor  reading  is  the 
result  of  the  efforts  of  awkward  self-consciousness,  — 
mental  dullness  and  natural  impediments  or  imper- 
fections being,  of  course,  left  out  of  consideration. 
Take,  for  instance,  this  passage :  — 

"  Life  is  real,  life  is  earnest, 

And  the  grave  is  not  its  goal; 
Dust  thou  art,  to  dust  returnest, 
Was  not  spoken  of  the  soul." 

How  often  it  is  read  I  how  rarely  read  well !  and 
simply  because  so  few  read  it  just  as  if  they  were 
speaking  it  of  themselves  to  some  one  else.  Usually 
we  hear  it  with  a  dropping  of  the  voice  on  "  real ' 
and  "  earnest  "  in  the  first  line  ;  a  monotone  on  the 


READING.  115 

lecond  line  until  the  "  goal "  is  reached,  and  then  an- 
other dropping ;  in  the  third  line  the  same  dropping 
of  the  voice  at  "  art ; "  and  in  the  fourth  monotone 
again,  with  a  strong  emphasis  on  "  not "  and  "  soul," 
and  a  dropping  of  the  voice  on  the  last  word.  Now 
no  person  would  speak  that  sentence  so.  The  voice 
would  rise  upon  "real"  and  "earnest;"  in  the  second 
line,  "grave"  would  have  an  emphasis,  and  be  pro- 
longed with  a  falling  inflection,  while  "  not "  would 
be  emphasized  with  a  rising  inflection  ;  the  third  line 
would  fall,  like  an  inclined  plane,  from  beginning  to 
end,  which  descent  would  continue  gently  into  the 
fourth  line  to  the  very  last  word,  when  "  soul  "  would 
receive  a  marked  emphasis  by  an  upward,  sharp  ris- 
ing inflection.  This  would  be  simple  nature ;  but  the 
passage  read  in  this  way  has  all  the  meaning  that  is 
in  it  brought  clearly  out  and  made  impressive. 

Now,  as  I  have  said  before,  learning,  knowledge, 
scholarship,  scientific  acquirement,  will  not  enable 
their  possessor  to  read  thus.  Mr.  Robert  Lowe's 
complaint  and  implied  expectation  to  the  contrary, 
that  boys,  although  they  had  been  at  school,  could 
not  read  the  newspapers  intelligently  and  intelli- 
gibly to  him  (he  is  almost  blind),  are  quite  iinrea- 
eonable.  As  well  expect  a  man  because  he  is  a 
scholar,  or  even  a  philologist,  to  write  well.  Some 
scholars,  and  even  some  philologists,  do  write  well, 
admirably  ;  but  they  are  very  few  in  number,  and 
their  ability  in  this  respect  is  not  the  fruit  of  their 
knowledge,  to  which  it  has  no  proportionate  relation. 
Reading,  when  not  a  natural  gift,  is  learned  only 
by  practice  in  presence  of  a  good  reader.  Language, 
living  language,  speech,  passes  only  from  living  lipa 
through  living  ears  to  living  lips  ;  and  reading  is,  or 


116  EVEBY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

should  be,  but  prescribed  speech.  What  can  be 
taught  of  it  is  learned  by  the  ear,  and  by  the  ear 
only.  But  there  is  much  besides  that  can  be  learned  ; 
and  that  is,  understanding,  quick  apprehension,  the 
appreciation  of  the  relation  of  thought.  These  come 
only  by  education ;  not  by  learning  facts,  but  by 
education,  of  which  more  hereafter. 


WKITING. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ENGLISH  SPELLING:   SOME   CONSIDERATIONS  OF   Ha 
ALLEGED  DIFFICULTY. 

As  I  lately  walked  up  Nassau  Street,  that  Cheap- 
Bide  of  peripatetic  vendors,  I  heard  a  voice  crying, 
"  Oh  nee  three  cents  furrup  parrot  wheezers  wuth 
too-oo  sh'ln."  I  turned  my  head,  with  some  curiosity 
upon  the  subject  of  parrot  wheezers,  and  found  that 
the  owner  of  the  voice  and  of  those  articles  held  the 
latter  between  his  thumb  and  forefinger,  while  a 
dozen  or  more  of  them  lay  before  him  on  a  tray. 
In  fact,  he  supposed  that  he  was  saying  what,  ac- 
».,ording  to  the  prejudices  now  prevalent  as  to  Eng- 
lish orthography,  would  be  written,  "  Only  three 
cents  for  a  pair  of  tweezers  worth  two  shillings  ; " 
and  the  purpose  of  his  outcry  was  the  purely  phil- 
anthropic one  of  vending  those  useful  implements  at 
that  alarming  sacrifice.  I  did  not  become  a  pur- 
chaser, whether  from  a  writer's  lack  of  the  coin  nec- 
essary to  such  a  transaction,  or  from  a  dim  conscious- 
ness that  I  was  already  the  possessor  of  some  half 
dozen  parrot  wheezers,  vagrant  and  of  various  degrees 
">i  antiquity  and  dissolution,  it  is  not  worth  while 
particularly  to  set  forth.  But  only  a  few  minutes 
liad  passed  when  I  felt  that  I  really  owed  that  adoles- 
cent person  three  cents,  if  not  more,  for  some  reflec- 
tions which  he  had  suggested  to  me  on  the  subject  of 
Rnglish  speech  and  spelling. 


120  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

On  wliat  ground  could  it  be  reasonably  maintained 
that  he  was  not  right  in  the  utterance  which  I,  with 
feeble  attempt  at  phonography,  have  endeavored  to 
record  ?  Usage  ?  There  are  more  people,  even  among 
the  educated,  who  call  the  little  toilet  tools  which  he 
was  engaged  in  dispensing  a  parrot  wheezers  than 
there  are  that  call  them  a  pair  of  tweezers.  I  doubt 
if  Macaulay  called  them  a  pair  of  tweezers.  Mr. 
Everett  might  have  done  so.  This  being  the  case,  — 
and  I  think  that  no  intelligent  and  accurate  observer 
of  English  speech  will  deny  that  it  is  so,  —  if  lan- 
guage is  spoken  words,  of  which  writing  is  but  a 
visible  record  and  expression,  why  is  not  parrot 
wheezers  the  proper  name,  and  the  proper  spelling  of 
the  name,  of  the  implements  in  question  ?  The  fact 
that  there  is  a  bird  called  a  parrot,  and  that  there 
are  certain  men  and  other  animals  which  are  called 
wheezers,  and  that  the  combination  of  those  two 
words  and  things  might  in  that  case  be  supposed  to 
be  indicated,  is  of  no  importance  in  this  relation. 
We  merely  use  the  same  sounds  to  mean  entirely 
different  things.  The  old  spelling-books  give  a  list  of 
words  of  the  same  sound,  but  of  different  meaning, 
including,  for  example,  ball,  a  round  body,  ball^  an 
assemblage  for  dancing,  and  baivl,  to  cry  aloud.  But, 
again,  if  language  is  mere  vocal  utterance,  speech,  why 
are  not  b  a  11  the  first,  b  a  11  the  second,  and  bawl 
the  same  words,  —  not  seemingly  the  same,  but  tc 
all  intents  and  purposes  actually  the  same?  Their 
entirely  different  etymology  and  meaning  are  facts 
ivhich  have  no  bearing  upon  the  question  considered 
from  this  point  of  view.  And  if,  as  the  phonetic 
spelling  reformers  declare,  orthography  should  do  no 
more  than  i-epresent  to  the  eye  the  sounds  of  words, 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  121 

and  should  do  that  exactly  under  all  circumstances, 
no  matter  what  the  meaning  or  the  origin  of  the 
words,  why  should  not  hall  and  bawl  be  spelled  alike, 
as  aspire  (Romanic,  meaning  to  breathe)  and  a  spire 
(Teutonic,  meaning  a  sprout)  really  are ;  and  why 
should  we  not  write,  instead  of  a  pair  of  tweezers,  u 
parrot  wheezers  ? 

The  chief  objection  to  our  doing  so,  it  should  seem, 
according  to  those  who  take  the  view  of  language 
and  of  orthography  just  mentioned,  is  that  by  writ- 
ing the  words  meaning  a  round  body  and  also  to  cry 
aloud  with  the  same  letters,  or  by  writing  pai-rot 
wheezers  instead  of  pair  of  tweezers,  we  should  save 
no  time.  For  your  advocate  of  phonetic  spelling  is 
strong  upon  the  point  of  the  saving  in  time,  in 
trouble,  and  in  money  that  would  be  brought  about 
by  his  reform. 

These  persons,  the  phonetic  spelling  reformers,  great 
and  small,  but  chiefly  small,  are  now  quite  cock-a- 
hoop  in  their  demand  and  expectation  of  a  thorough 
change  in  the  spelling  of  the  English  language,  and 
they  speak  and  write  upon  the  subject  in  the  spirit 
of  exterminating  persecution.  One  of  them,  writing 
to  me,  declares  that  "  the  ridiculous  nonsense  of  the 
old  alphabetic  construction  is  simply  satanic,"  and 
I  have  heard  others  of  his  stripe  call  it  "  fiendish," 
and  stamp  metaphorically  up  and  down  as  they  de- 
tiounced  it  as  a  crime  perpetrated  at  the  instigation 
of  the  devil.  These  people  are  full  of  scorn  and  con- 
tempt for  what  they  call  the  old,  ridiculous  way  of 
ispelling ;  speaking  of  it  as  if  it  were  a  device,  and  as 
'.f  the  present  relations  of  spoken  English  and  written 
English  were  the  result  of  a  contrivance  which  had 
failed  miserably.     Now,  the  simple  fact  is  that  tho8« 


122  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

relations  are  tlie  growth  of  circumstances,  —  a  growth 
which  in  the  ver^^  nature  of  things  was  inevitable, 
and  which,  were  we  to  have  a  new  alphabet  to-mor- 
row, would  occur  again,  beginning  the  next  day  after 
to-morrow.  This  the  phonetic  reformers  do  not  see  ; 
their  eyes  are  so  fixed  upon  the  discrepancy  and  con- 
fusion in  such  pairs  of  words,  for  example,  as  are  and 
hare,  hear  and  hear,  tough  and  through,  daughter  and 
laughter,  that  they  see  no  farther  than  their  present 
perplexity  ;  and  their  supreme  desire  is  to  bring  us 
to  a  divine  and  heavenly  conformity  of  sound  with 
letter.  That  I  am  not  misrepresenting  them,  even 
by  hyperbole,  will  be  seen  by  the  following  passage, 
quoted,  italic  and  all,  from  the  letter  of  the  phonetic 
enthusiast  before  cited :  "  We  do  not  want  new 
theory,  or  misleading  diverging  roads  ;  the  narrow 
way  is  open ;  it  leads  to  life,  and  for  God's  sake  why 
will  we  not  walk  in  it  ?  "  Simply,  my  good  friend, 
because  we  have  preserved  our  common  sense,  and 
have  not  gone  clean  daft,  as  specialists  are  apt  to  do. 
We  spell  as  we  do,  and  much  as  our  fathers  spelled, 
because  we  are  our  fathers'  children,  and  our  chil- 
dren will  spell  much  as  we  do  because  they  are  our 
children.  We  are  our  fathers'  children  mentally  as 
well  as  physically,  and  the  language  of  one  genera- 
tion is  the  offspring  of  tliat  of  its  predecessor,  —  a 
reproduction  of  it  with  differences  unessential  and 
hardly  perceptible.  You  might  as  well  attempt  to 
cut  men  off  from  their  progenitors  in  any  other  re- 
spect, physical,  moral,  or  mental,  as  to  sever  rudely 
jmd  abruptly  the  language,  either  written  or  spoken, 
of  one  generation  froui  that  of  its  predecessor. 

The  view  of  language  and  of  orthography  which  ia 
iaken  by  the  soberer  and  abler  advocates  of  a  radical 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  123 

spelling  reform  is  clearly  and  strongly  set  forth  by 
one  of  our  most  eminent  philologists,  Professor  Fran- 
cis A.  March,  in  an  address  delivered  by  him  before 
the  American  Philological  Society,  as  president  of 
that  learned  body.  I  give  it  in  full,  because,  coming 
from  such  a  source,  it  is  worthy  of  the  most  respect- 
ful consideration,  and  also  in  order  that  my  readers 
may  see  for  themselves  completely  the  position  which 
I  shall  examine  :  — 

"In  the  first  place,  a  scientific  knowledge  of  language  may 
be  and  should  be  the  means  of  improving  language  itself. 
When  there  is  talk  of  improving  language,  the  first  thing 
that  a  man  who  uses  the  Enghsh  language  thinks  of  is  spell- 
ing. It  is  of  no  use  to  try  to  characterize  with  fitting 
epithets  and  adequate  terms  of  objurgation  the  monstrous 

spelling  of  the  English  language Spelling  is  often 

thought  of  as  child's  work  and  of  little  serious  moment, 
but  it  is  by  no  means  so.  The  time  lost  by  it  is  a  large 
part  of  the  whole  school-time  of  the  mass  of  men,  and  with 
a  large  majority  of  those  who  are  said  to  read,  and  who 
can  read  if  you  give  them  time,  it  is  a  fatal  bar  through  life 
to  that  easy  and  intelligent  reading  which  every  one  ought 
to  have  at  command.  Count  the  hours  which  each  man 
wastes  in  learning  to  read  at  school,  the  hours  which  he 
;vastes  through  life  from  the  hindrance  to  easy  reading,  the 
hours  wasted  at  school  in  learning  to  spell,  the  hours  spent 
through  life  in  keeping  up  and  perfecting  this  knowledge  of 
spelling,  in  consulting  dictionaries,  —  a  work  that  never 
ends,  —  the  hours  that  he  spends  in  writing  silent  letters, 
and  multiply  this  time  by  the  number  of  persons  who  speak 
English,  and  we  shall  have  a  total  of  millions  of  years 
wasted  by  each  generation.  The  cost  of  printing  the  silent 
letters  of  the  English  language  is  to  be  counted  by  millions 
of  dollars  for  each  generation.  Who  has  not  heard  the 
groans    of  Germans    or    Frenchmen    trying  to  learn  how 


124  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

our  words  sound,  or  read  the  petitions  of  the  Japanese  ? 
And  yet  literary  amateurs  fall  in  love  v/ith  these  squintings 
and  lispings.  Their  favorite  old  English  editions  extend 
the  charms  of  their  fair  white  paper,  clear  and  graceful 
type,  broad  margins,  and  comely,  trusty  binding  to  the 
Bpelliug  which  is  used  in  them,  and  these  old  forms  of  the 
words  have  an  aroma  like  the  old  leather  of  the  binding, 
more  delightful  than  wine.  They  try  to  defend  them  by 
pleading  their  advantage  in  the  study  of  etymology.  But 
a  changeless  orthography  destroys  the  material  for  etymo- 
logical study,  and  written  records  are  valuable  to  the  phi- 
lologist just  in  proportion  as  they  are  accurate  records  of 
speech  as  spoken  from  year  to  year." 

In  the  objections  here  raised  to  the  present  system 
of  orthography  —  if  it  can  be  called  a  system  —  there 
is  nothing  particularly  new,  according  to  my  obser- 
vation, except  the  jDoint  as  to  the  loss  of  money  in- 
volved in  the  time  spent  in  writing  letters  which  are 
not  pronounced.  The  irregularity,  the  incongruity, 
and  the  anomaly  of  English  orthography  have  been 
asserted  and  discussed  for  many  years.  And  it  must 
be  confessed  that  the  objections  made  to  it  have  much 
reason  on  their  side,  —  if  they  are  not  made  against 
an  unavoidable  result  of  the  relations  of  spoken  and 
written  language.  Nor  shall  I,  for  one,  hold  up  for 
unqualified  admiration  a  system  which  has,  in  a  great 
measure,  been  imposed  upon  us  by  pedagogues,  print- 
ers, and  publishers,  not  however  without  great  benefit 
to  literature.  But  although  Professor  March  is  a  plii- 
lulogist  with  whom  any  writer  upon  language  might 
well  consult  his  safety  by  agreeing,  I  shall  venture 
to  express  my  disagreement  with  some  of  the  posi- 
tions wliich  he  has  taken. 

In  the  first  place,  it  does  not  seem  to  be  so  sure  a 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  126 

thing  that  a  scientific  knowledge  of  language  eithei 
may  be  or  should  be  a  means  of  improving  language 
itself.  Science  is  essentially  positive  ;  and  above  all 
other  sciences  that  of  language  is  so.  It  deals  with 
ascei'tained  facts.  Its  function  is  the  discovery  of 
facts  in  the  Instory  of  human  speech,  of  their  rela- 
tions and  their  analogies,  and  of  the  laws,  if  there  be 
laws,  according  to  which  those  facts  have  been  evolved. 
Reasoning  from  what  has  been  to  what  may  be, 
science  may  point  out,  not  with  certainty,  but  with 
more  or  less  of  probability,  what  will  be  the  course 
of  events  in  any  department  of  human  knowledge. 
Briefly,  it  may  indicate  a  normal  line  of  progress. 
But  this,  possible  in  other  sciences,  seems  to  be  ex- 
ceedingly difficult,  if  not  almost  impossible,  in  lan- 
guage. For  the  form  and  the  very  substance  of  lan- 
guage depend  upon  the  working  of  an  incalculable 
foi'ce,  the  human  will,  —  say  rather,  as  to  language, 
the  human  caprice,  the  unreasonable,  fleeting  fashion 
of  a  day.  And  this  capricious  force,  rebelling  against 
no  law,  because  it  is  rightfully  subject  to  no  law,  is 
a  constant  force.  Now  in  no  department  of  language 
is  the  will  so  capricious,  so  unaccountable,  and  so  un- 
traceable in  its  action  as  in  pronunciation,  with  which 
orthography  disagrees,  and  with  which,  in  all  lan- 
guages which  have  a  literature,  orthography  has  al- 
ways disagreed  more  or  less,  the  variation  being  least, 
I  believe,  in  the  modern  Spanish. 

Moreover,  in  all  departments  of  language  science 
^ould  seem  to  be  powerless  as  an  agent,  because,  in 
the  very  nature  of  things,  usage  must  run  ahead  of 
icience,  and  usage  is  determined  by  an  altogether 
irresponsible,  irregular,  and  almost  undetectable  ex» 
srcise  of   the  will.      Usage   may  not   always  make 


126  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

right  in  language,  but  it  must  make  fact.  And  as  to 
pronunciation  and  orthography,  science  may  teach 
through  trumpets,  but  men  will  be  guided,  must  be 
guided,  and  ought  to  be  guided  by  usage,  and  not  by 
reason.  You  may  preach  to  a  man  from  the  highest 
pinnacle  of  phonology  that  he  ought  to  pronounce 
sewer  soo-er  or  see-wer,  but  if  those  around  him  pro- 
nounce it  sJiore,  as  all  men  used  to,  he  will  so  pro- 
nounce it.^  You  may  prove  to  him  in  Barbara  that 
he  ought  to  write  through  Oru,  and  if  the  people 
around  him  write  it  through  he  will  so  write  it.  He 
must  so  pronounce,  he  must  so  write,  or  he  would  be 
unintelligible,  and  thus  fail  of  the  very  end  he  has 
in  view  in  either  speaking  or  writing.  The  misuse 
of  words  may  be  corrected  by  teaching  ;  the  art  of 
using  lauguage  effectively  may  be  taught,  or  at  least 

1  To  persons  whose  knowledge  of  language  is  limited  by  what  they 
hear  from  day  to  day,  this  pronunciation  (as  I  have  found)  seems 
very  strange.  But  the  word  was  sometimes  written  in  a  way  that 
would  leave  no  doubt,  if  there  were  room  for  doubt,  as  to  its  pro- 
nunciation. 

"  Log  how  the  man  who  stir'd  Rome's  comon  shore 
Until  it  stunk,  and  stunk  him  out  of  dore." 

(Gataker's  Life  of  Bale,  page  500.) 

"  .  .  .  .  the  common  shore  of  a  city,  nothing  falls  amiss  unto  them 
[informers],  and  if  there  be  no  filth  in  the  commonwealth  they  can 
live  by  honesty." 

(Shirley,  Love  Tricks,  Act  L,  Scene  1.) 

"  Though  she  be  Linsey-Woolsey,  Bawd  and  Whore 
....  to  Venus,  Nature's  common  shore." 

(Earl  of  llochester.  Satyr  against  Marriage.) 

But  enough  :  the  nature  of  the  thing  makes  the  illustration  of  the 
word  unsavory.  This  pronunciation  continued  iu  vogue  until  within 
tlu!  last  half-century.  I  have  heard  it  from  old  people.  There  is 
nothing  so  strange  about  it.  The  ew  has  the  sound  that  it  has  in  seic 
(soiv),  a  spelling  that  is  but  just  goiug  out ;  aud  tlie  s  has  the  sound 
that  it  has  in  sugar  and  in  sure,  aud  which  in  the  days  of  our  grand 
(athers  it  had  in  presume,  etc.,  and  in  Shakespeare's  days  in  suit. 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  127 

it  may  be  learned  ;  but  how  science  is  to  in:  prove 
language  itself  it  is  at  least  very  difiicult  to  discover, 
unless  language  is  first  formed  by  science,  and  ia 
then  imposed  upon  men  by  a  linguistic  autocrat,  — 
one,  for  two  would  surely  disagree. 

Nor  can  I,  for  one,  acknowledge  that  the  first 
thought  of  every  man  who  thinks  at  all  upon  the 
subject  of  improving  the  English  language  is  in  ref- 
erence to  its  spelling.  Certainly,  there  are  many 
thoughtful,  although  possibly  not  inerroneous,  stu- 
dents of  the  subject,  who  regard  other  possible  im- 
provements as  much  more  desirable,  and  as  not  less 
desirable  because  of  their  possibility.  Among  these 
are  the  purging  it  of  needless,  cumbrous,  and  en- 
feebling Romanic  words  and  phrases  and  construc- 
tions, the  increase  of  its  compounding  power,  and  the 
attainment  of  a  greater  exactness  and  precision  by  a 
regard  to  the  radical  meaning  of  words  already  form- 
ing a  part  of  its  vocabulary. 

That  the  spelling  of  the  English  language  is  so 
grievous  an  infliction  upon  mankind  as  Professor 
March,  and  some  others  whose  opinions  are  of  less 
weight,  would  make  it  out  to  be,  I  cannot  see.  Care- 
ful and  cautious  as  he  is  in  linguistic  analysis,  it 
would  seem  that  here  he  has  given  loose  rein  to  ex- 
aggeration. And  I  think,  moreover,  that  he  has  mis- 
apprehended the  facts,  as  some  others  have.  Learn- 
ing to  spell  a  full  vocabulary  of  English  words  is  not 
very  easy  work  for  most  children ;  but  it  nevertheless 
does  very  distinctly  and  clearly  seem  to  be  "  child's 
work."  For  it  is  of  that  purely  elemental,  unreason- 
ing kind,  requiring  only  study,  memory,  and  habit, 
vrliich  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  tlie  childish  condition 
j>f  mind.     It  is  almost  the  only  thing  that  may  be 


128  EVERY-DAT   ENGLISH. 

kaught  absolutely  and  witliout  discussion,  which  ad- 
mits no  question,  and  in  a  young  child  invites  none, 
but  which  is  accepted  absolutelj'^  by  him,  as  he  re- 
ceives it  from  usage  and  from  instruction,  —  as  he 
receives  his  spoken  mother  tongue  itself.  The  teach- 
ing of  it,  too,  is  a  task  that  may  be  left  to  almost  any 
person  of  ordinary  intelligence  and  education,  quite 
regardless  of  beliefs  or  moral  questions.  There  is 
not  a  religious  and  a  freethinking,  a  Papist  and  a 
Protestant,  school  of  spelling.  As  to  its  not  being 
child's  work,  if  it  is  not  learned  in  childhood,  it 
will  never  be  learned  at  all. 

Without  doubt,  it  is  not  easy  —  that  is,  it  is  not 
very  easy  —  to  learn  to  spell  English.  But  why 
should  it  be  easy  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  learn  to  do  any- 
thing rightly  and  readily  that  is  much  worth  the 
doing,  or  to  get  thoroughly  any  knowledge  that  is 
much  worth  the  knowing.  To  learn  to  spell  requires 
attention,  observation,  application,  memory.  So  does 
the  acquirement  of  any  knowledge ;  and  one  of  the 
advantages  of  early  exercise  in  spelling  is  the  disci- 
pline it  gives  to  all  the  faculties  just  mentioned,  the 
proper  training  of  which,  and  not  the  mere  knowl- 
edge attained,  is  education. 

The  fact  of  first  importance  in  the  consideration  of 
this  subject  is  that  spelling  has  nothing  to  do  with 
speech,  that  is,  with  spoken  words,  with  language 
proper.  It  is  an  accompaniment  and  condition  of 
writing  only.  No  writing,  no  spelling.  Yet  many 
persons,  perhaps  most  persons,  seem  to  think  that 
the  words  they  speak  are  made  by  being  spelled, — 
that  they  are  the  result  of  putting  together  certain 
letters.  The  relation  of  spelling  to  speech,  on  the 
contrary,  is  not  only  arbitrary  and  conventional,  but 
entirely  unessential. 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  120 

It  seems,  nevertheless,  to  be  assumed  by  many  peo- 
ple that  spelling,  that  is,  the  use  of  this  arbitrary, 
conventional,  and  highly  artificial  form  of  language, 
ought  to  be  learned  with  little  trouble  or  none.  I 
should  like  to  have  them  tell  me  why.  It  is  not 
even  easy  to  learn  to  speak  well  and  readilj^  How 
many  years  pass  and  how  much  trouble  is  taken  be- 
fore a  child  of  common  intelligence  is  able  to  speak 
its  mother  tongue  plainly  and  correctly  !  Some  are 
well  on  in  their  'teens  before  they  accomplish  that, 
and  some  never  do  accomplish  it.  There  are  certain 
sounds  and  certain  combinations  of  sounds  which  they 
are  never  able  to  utter,  just  as  some  other  young  per- 
sons are  never  able  to  master  certain  combinations 
in  written  language,  that  is,  in  spelling.  And  why 
should  we  look  for  a  readiness  and  command  in  the 
use  of  the  arbitrary  visible  signs  of  speech  that  we 
do  not  find  in  speech  itself  ?  It  seems  to  be  assumed 
that  all  persons  should  be  able  to  spell  as  they  are 
able  to  speak.  Why  ?  It  would  be  very  difficult,  I 
think,  to  give  a  sufficient  ground  in  reason  to  sup- 
port  this  assumption. 

If  pronunciation  were  not  the  varying  —  now 
slightly,  now  greatly,  varying  —  thing  that  it  is,  and 
if  every  arbitrary  sign  represented  the  single  sound 
to  which  it  was  first  assigned  (if  indeed  any  letters, 
except  a  very  few  of  the  consonants,  were  so  assigned, 
which  seems  to  me  more  than  doubtful)  ;  if  sounds 
were  expressible  by  signs,  so  that  one  man  could  com- 
municate that  which  he  means  to  another  by  any 
alphabet,  however  ingeniously  contrived  and  however 
copious  (which  I  think  I  shall  show  hereafter  is  not 
the  case,  even  among  phonologists), —  if  these  sup- 
posed relations  of  speech  and  spellirg  were  as  certain 
9 


130  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

AS  tbey  are  doubtful,  with  what  reason  should  we 
even  then  expect  children  or  young  persons  to  learn 
easily  to  spell  well  ?  What  do  they  learn  easily  ? 
Not  arithmetic,  I  believe,  although  figures  are  un- 
changeable in  their  representative  power  and  in  their 
relations,  and  children  begin  to  count  and  to  reckon 
almost  as  soon  as  tliey  begin  to  speak.  Children  toil 
over  the  spelling-book,  but  do  they  not  also  toil  over 
arithmetic  ?  In  the  days  of  feruling,  for  which  did 
they  suffer  more,  —  their  spelling  or  their  tables, 
polysyllables  or  long  division  ?  According  to  my 
experience  and  my  observation,  much  more  for  the 
latter.  And  with  what  result  ?  We  can  most  of  us 
spell  correctly  all  the  words  that  we  have  occasion  to 
use,  and  do  it  without  thought.  But  apart  from  pro- 
fessed accountants,  which  of  us  could  go  through  the 
multiplication  table  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  as 
readily  and  as  correctly  as  he  could  write  a  letter,  — 
something  immediately  ready  to  say  in  the  letter 
being  provided  ?  I  fear  that  at  any  competitive  ex- 
amination through  which  I  might  be  put  I  should  be 
found  shaky  in  my  "sevens"  and  "nines;"  and  I 
know  that  there  are  many  persons  who  spell  "  like  a 
book "  who  would  share  my  uncertainty.  The  as- 
sumption that  spelling  should  be  more  easily  learned 
and  retained  than  any  other  elementary  branch  of 
study,  for  instance,  arithmetic  or  geography,  seems 
to  be  entirely  without  foundation  in  reason.  That 
the  power  of  speaking  easily  and  correctly  should  be 
general  might  be  much  more  reasonably  assumed 
because  speech  is  the  distinctive  attribute  of  mankind. 
But  we  all  know  that  even  speech,  correct  speech,  if 
not  thus  easily  and  readily  acquired  ;  how,  then,  car 
We  expect  that  the  ready  and  correct  use  of  the  ar 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  131 

bitravy  signs  of  shifting  speech  should  be  acquired 
more  readily,  and  retained  so  as  to  be  more  abso- 
lutely at  command  ? 

Spelling,  however,  is  spoken  of  by  the  phonetic  re- 
foi-mers  as  if  it  were  the  most  difficult  to  acquire  of  all 
the  elementary  branches  of  knowledge.  I  am  sure 
that  it  is  not  so,  except  as  it  is  the  first  to  be  learned. 
Being  the  first  real  study  to  which  a  child  is  put,  it 
is  the  one  which  is  most  tedious,  and  under  which  he 
is  most  fretful.  The  breaking  in  of  a  colt,  to  which 
it  corresponds,  is  not  very  easy  either  to  the  colt 
or  to  the  breaker-in.  But  once  started,  once  broken 
in,  a  child  learns  spelling  at  least  as  easily  as  he 
learns  anything.  Some  three  years  ago,  in  one  of 
my  country  walks  in  England,  I  came  upon  a  village 
school-house  in  Essex.  I  entered  it,  and  observed 
the  scholars  and  talked  w^ith  the  school-master. 
The  former  were  about  one  hundred  in  number,  and 
were  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  small  farmers  and 
peasantry  of  a  very  rural  district ;  the  latter  had  re- 
cently come  there  from  "  the  counties,"  as  he  said,  — 
Essex,  Sussex,  and  Kent,  and  1  believe  Norfolk  and 
Suffolk,  not  being  called  counties  or  shires,  and  the 
people  living  there  taking  some  local  pride  in  the 
fact,  for  reasons  which  I  need  not  go  into  here.  He 
was  from  Warwickshire,  where  he  had  had  a  village 
Bchool;  and  he  had  had  one  elsewhere.  In  the  course 
of  my  talk  I  asked  him  if  he  did  not  find  it  very 
difficult  to  teach  his  little  folk  to  spell.  "  No,"  he 
promptly  replied,  "  after  the  first,  not  at  all ;  quite 
the  contrary.  The  diflBcult  branches  to  teach  them 
are  arithmetic  and  geography."  His  reply  confirmed 
nay  own  previously  formed  judgment,  given  above, 
»nd  published    two    years   before    (as    to  which  he 


132  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

knew  nothing ;  for  I  was  to  him  only  a  passing 
Btranger  taking  a  country  walk),  and  I  am  sure  that 
it  represents  the  true  state  of  the  case. 

That  it  does  so  I  am  the  surer,  because  of  the 
difficulty  there  is  in  getting  a  sight  of  a  letter  which 
is  marked  by  any  gross  errors  in  spelling,  and  by  the 
nature  of  the  errors  when  they  do  occur.  I  have 
applied  to  men  who,  by  the  duties  of  their  positions, 
were  required  to  examine  scores  of  letters  every  day ; 
and  I  have  learned  from  them,  and  also  from  the 
inspection  myself  of  heaps  of  letters  on  their  tables 
at  various  times,  that  in  ordinary  letter-writing  mis- 
spelling is  tlie  rarest  of  faults.  One  of  these  gentle- 
men, who  for  the  very  purpose  of  correction  reads 
carefully  thousands  of  letters  yearly,  —  letters,  many 
of  which  he  knows  are  from  men  who  have  not  had 
even  a  common  public-school  education,  — told  me 
that  he  had  many  other  errors  to  correct,  but  very 
rarely,  if  ever,  one  in  spelling.  Then  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  errors.  I  have  two  letters  before  me  which  I 
have  kept  as  examples.  They  were  written  by  a 
man  who  is  wholly  uneducated,  who  was  brought  up 
before  the  mast,  and  who  has  remained  in  his  first 
condition  of  life,  although  with  honor.  He  is  re- 
spectable and  intelligent ;  but  he  writes  /  with  a 
small  letter,  carefully  dotted,  i;  he  spells  like  lick^ 
reef  reff^  allow  aloio,  hook  hock,  once  wonce.  But  it  ia 
to  be  observed  that  in  these  same  letters,  "  commo- 
dore," "friend,"  "explain,"  "position,"  "  aifairs," 
"department,"  "execution,"  "transferred,"  "trans- 
action," "  service,"  "  consideration,"  and  other  such 
words  are  spelled  riglitly.  That  he  does  not  go 
for  these  to  a  dictionary  I  know,  for  I  have  seen  hiii. 
write  letters,  and  a  very  good  handwriting  he  has 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  133 

Now,  this,  according  to  my  observation,  is  the  rule : 
misspelling  ^n  every-day  English  is  in  the  easy  words, 
•^  those  in  which  there  are  fewest  letters,  in  which 
the  letters  have  their  simplest  and  most  obvious  value. 
This  shows  that  the  difficulty  in  spelling,  such  as 
there  is,  is  not  in  the  lack  of  exact  correspondence 
between  sign  and  sound,  and  that  it  is  owing  to  some 
other  cause.  Only  a  few  days  ago  I  had  occasion  to 
look  over  a  page  of  writing  by  a  young  man  who  I 
knew  had  been  well  taught  in  his  early  childhood ; 
who  had  been  to  a  good  public  school  and  good  pri- 
vate schools ;  who  had  had  two  college  graduates  as 
private  tutors  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics;  and 
whose  associations  had  always  been  with  well-educated 
people,  —  and  he,  writing  words  of  many  syllables 
and  obscure  sounds  correctly,  spelled  name  naim ; 
but,  moreover,  he  had  spelled  it  thus  with  the  ivord 
properly  prmted  before  his  eyes^  for  he  had  copied 
the  passage  from  a  book.  It  was  no  mere  chance, 
for  I  found  that  he  made  other  similar  mistakes  in 
copying  as  well  as  in  merely  writing  simple  words. 
Plainly,  it  is  not  the  difficulties  of  orthography  which 
cause  bad  spelling.  What  is  its  cause  I  may  not  be 
%ble  to  show. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

NGLISH   SPELLING:    CONSIDERATION  OF    PROPOSED 
PHONETIC    REFORM. 

"  With  tlie  simplest  form  for  a  letter,  atid  a  letter 
for  each  sound  in  the  language,  there  is  no  need  of 
further  theory  ;  we  want  action^  Thus  begins  a  let- 
ter that  I  received  from  an  intelligent  man,  almost 
rabid  with  the  phonetic  mania.  Quite  in  the  same 
vein  is  the  following  passage  from  a  printed  comment 
on  some  of  my  criticism  of  the  spelling  reform  :  "  In 
the  first  place,  it  is  absurd  that  any  child  should  have 
to  learn  to  spell.  It  is  possible  so  to  construct  the 
sound  signs  —  otherwise  letters  —  that,  having  once 
mastered  them,  the  mere  act  of  speaking  a  word 
gives  its  spelling."  And  my  first-cited  correspondent 
says ;  "  Fifteen  years  ago  all  the  experiments  were 
satisfactorily  tried  and  the  results  recorded.  The 
war  bi'oke  up  the  interest,  or  Congress  would  have 
finished  the  work  it  began,  to  have  all  the  printed 
matter  of  the  country  in  true  type." 

These  three  passages  from  two  quarters  are  worthy 
of  special  attention,  because  they  embody  the  three 
great  fallacies  of  the  phonetic  reformers.  The  first 
is  that  there  is  no  good  reason  why  the  spelling  of 
one's  written  language  should  require  to  be  learned, 
■ — a  very  profound  discovery,  which,  however,  was 
anticipated  by  a  gentleman  named  Dogberry,  who,  in 
his  well-known  remark  that  "to  be  a  well-favored 


ENGLISH  SPELLING.  135 

man  is  the  gift  of  God,  but  reading  and  writing  come 
by  nature,"  was,  it  seems,  but  a  pioneer  and  prophet 
preparing  tlie  way  of  phonetic  spelling  reform.  The 
second  of  these  fallacies  is  that  all  that  is  necessary 
to  make  a  change  to  phonetic  writing  practicable  is 
the  provision  of  a  letter  for  each  sound  in  the  lan- 
guage ;  English  sounds,  according  to  this  correspond- 
ent, being  forty-two  in  number.  The  third  fallacy 
is  that  this  practicable  phonetic  writing  being  once 
discovered,  it  may  be  brought  into  general  use  by 
"  action  "  of  some  kind  or  othei",  —  whereas-ing,  re- 
solving, bill  in  Congress,  or  what  not. 

The  advocates  of  a  phonetic  writing  of  English 
are  of  two  classes,  —  first,  learned  specialists,  whose 
opinions  as  to  the  past  in  language  are  worthy  of  the 
utmost  respect,  but  who,  as  is  generally  the  case  with 
specialists,  while  holding  the  course  of  their  specialty 
have  lost  the  balance  of  their  common-sense  :  just  as 
a  ship  kept  on  one  tack  sometimes  shifts  her  ballast, 
having  it  all  just  as  before,  but  a  little  out  of  place, 
and  beiug  just  as  good  a  sailer  as  ever,  if  only  she 
could  be  righted.  To  these  are  added  a  second  and 
very  much  lai'ger  class  of  unlearned  specialists,  whose 
opinions  upon  language,  past  or  present,  are  worth 
nothing,  who  never  had  common-sense  enough  to 
ballast  an  intellectual  cock-boat,  and  whose  propet 
harbor  is  David  Jones's  locker.  It  is  with  deference 
and  self-distrust  that  I  express  difference  of  opinion 
with  the  former,  however  strong  may  be  my  convic- 
tion of  their  speculative  error.  It  is  not,  however, 
in  their  writings  that  we  find  these  three  fallacies, 
but  in  those  of  the  latter,  who  are  the  most  numer- 
ous, and  who  are  generally  vociferous  in  proportiou 
to  their  ignorance. 


136  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

No  one  needs  telling  that  if  the  number  of  sounds 
in  a  language  is  exactly  ascertained,  and  an  unmis- 
takable sign  is  provided  for  each  sound,  while  these 
sounds  remain  unchanged,  and  while  the  signs  or 
letters  are  confined  strictly  to  the  expression  or  in- 
dication of  the  sounds  to  which  they  were  originally 
assigned,  any  word  in  that  language  may  be  easily 
and  exactly  expressed  —  that  is,  written  or  spelled  — 
by  any  person  who  justly  apprehends  the  sounds  and 
has  mastered  the  signs  or  letters.  Nor  is  there  room 
for  reasonable  doubt  that  a  word  thus  written  will  be 
unmistakable  in  its  sound  and  structure  by  every  per- 
son who  has  exactly  the  same  apprehension  of  the 
sounds  that  the  writer  has,  and  the  same  conception 
as  his  of  the  force  of  the  letters.  But  this  is  a  condi- 
tion of  things  which  does  not  now  exist,  which  has 
never  existed  since  the  world  began,  and  which  never 
can  exist.  It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  speech  or  of 
written  language  that  it  should  exist.  If  it  could  be 
establislied  to-day  absolutely  and  clearly  by  a  power 
that  had  under  control  the  actions,  the  thoughts,  the 
feelings,  and  the  intuitions  of  men  for  twenty-four 
hours,  and  no  longer,  it  would  not  exist  in  perfection 
to-morrow  ;  and  before  a  generation  had  passed  the 
difference  of  the  relations  between  sound  and  sign, 
when  compared  witli  their  original  relations,  if  not  so 
great  as  they  now  are  assumed  to  be  by  the  phonetic 
reformers,  would  be  great  enough  to  be  made  a  sub- 
ject of  agitation  by  those  who  are  born  agitators. 

This  seemed  clear  to  me,  and  I  published  it  long 
ago  ;  and  when  I  visited  Oxford  I  talked  this  matter 
over  with  a  distinguished  philologist  and  Oriental 
Bchoiar,  —  a  very  eminent  man  indeed,  who  avowed 
himself  in  favor  of  a  phonetic  reform.     After  we  had 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  137 

turned  the  subject  over  pretty  thoroughly,  ray  part 
being  chiefly  that  of  listening  and  suggesting,  I  said, 
"  Well,  professor,  suppose  all  this  done,  considering 
the  normal  course  of  linguistic  progress,  what  would 
be  the  condition  of  things  in  the  next  generation?" 
"  Well,"  he  answered,  with  a  demure  and  deprecating 
smile,  "  I  am  afraid  it  would  all  have  to  be  done  over 
again."  But  since  that  time  I  have  found  that  Alex- 
ander Ellis  himself,  whose  preeminence  as  a  phonolo- 
gist  is  questioned  by  no  one,  and  who  also  advocates 
phonetic  writing,  expresses  the  same  opinion,  in  the 
first  chapter  of  his  great  work  on  the  "  History  of 
English  Pronunciation."  In  regard  to  the  use  of  pho- 
netic writing,  he  remarks,  "  Would  our  pronunciation 
remain  fixed  ?  All  experience  is  against  its  doing  so, 
and  consequently  spelling,  considered  as  the  mirror 
of  speech,  would  probably  have  to  be  adjusted  from 
generation  to  generation."  The  mistake  of  the  emi- 
nent philologists  who  lean  toward  phonetic  reforma- 
tion of  written  English  seems  to  me  to  be  that  they 
suppose  the  world  would  consent  to  this  continual  re- 
adjustment. They  do  not,  like  the  vociferating  pho- 
netic crowd,  fail  to  see  the  tremendous  upturning 
of  written  language  that  would  be  going  on  ;  they 
know  too  much  for  that.  But,  looking  habitually  at 
language  as  a  subject  of  philological  study,  and  al- 
most of  manipulation,  they  think  that  others  may  be 
brought  to  regard  it  from  the  same  point  of  view. 
It  seems  to  me  that  they  might,  with  nearly  as  much 
reason,  ask  men  to  give  philology  a  like  influence 
upon  the  breath  of  tneir  nostrils. 

This  opinion  seems  also  to  me  to  be  supported  by 
the  following  important  dictum  s  of  Mr.  Ellis.  He  lay  a 
down  certain  phonological  laws,  which  no  one  has 


138  E VERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

disputed,  and  only  one  of  which  (unimportant  here) 
Beems  to  me  disputable.  One  of  them  is  this  "  in- 
dividual law,"  as  he  terms  it :  "A  series  of  spoken 
Bounds  acquired  during  childhood  and  youth  remains 
fixed  in  the  individual  during  the  rest  of  his  life." 
Let  this  law  be  borne  in  mind  in  connection  with  the 
fact  that  no  two  distant  places,  even  in  this  country, 
have  just  the  same  sounds  for  the  same  words,  and 
that  nicely  discriminating  phonologists  say  that  no  two 
men  give  exactly  the  same  sound  to  the  same  word. 
Consider  also  another  important  fact  in  language  to 
which  Ellis  calls  attention  (Part  I.,  page  18)  :  that 
at  any  particular  time  there  are  generally  three  gen- 
erations living  ;  that  each  middle  generation  has  be- 
gun to  exist  at  a  different  time  from  the  others,  and 
has  modified  the  speech  of  its  predecessor  in  a  some- 
what different  manner,  after  which  it  retains  its  own 
modification,  from  which  the  following  generation 
proceeds  to  change  that  form  once  more  ;  and  that 
consequently  there  will  not  be  any  approach  to  uni- 
formity of  speech-sound  in  any  one  place  at  any  one 
time,  but  a  kind  of  mean  —  the  general  speech  of  the 
more  thoughtful,  educated,  and  respected  persons,  — 
consider  these  facts  and  this  law,  which  I  am  sure 
will  be  disputed  by  no  intelligent  person  who  has 
even  a  moderate  acquaintance  witli  the  history  of  lan- 
guage, and  then  decide,  if  you  can,  what  would  be 
the  result  of  an  attempt  at  the  phonetic  writing  and 
printing  of  English  at  this  stage  of  its  literature  and 
condition  of  its  journalism,  and  say  whether  the 
opinion  that  those  who  read  books  and  newspapers, 
to  say  nothing  of  those  wlio  make  them,  would  accept 
that  result  much  longer  than  twenty-four  hours  ia 
consistent  with  a  condition  of  perfect  mental  sanity 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  139 

It  is  difficult  to  see  any  other  result  of  such  a 
change  in  written  English  than  that,  on  the  one 
hand,  there  would  be  anarchy  in  visible  speech, 
every  place  having  a  spelling  of  its  own,  and  almost 
every  man  doing  likewise  ;  and,  on  the  other,  that 
the  written  English  of  the  past  would,  in  the  course 
of  a  generation,  become  as  much  a  dead  language  as 
Anglo-Saxon  is.  Now,  to  the  real  philologists  this 
would  be  of  very  little  consequence.  Indeed,  from 
their  professional  point  of  view,  they  would  rather 
like  it.  Varieties  of  speech  in  different  places  would 
thus  be  expressed  and  recorded ;  phonetic  decay  could 
be  easily  traced  ;  and  the  periods  and  localities  of 
language  would  be  marked  unmistakably.  Special- 
ists and  scientific  men  generally  get  into  the  habit 
of  looking  at  the  whole  cosmos,  and  upon  every  in- 
dividual, animal,  or  thing  in  it,  and  upon  the  very 
feelings  and  needs  and  habits  and  hopes  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  merely  as  subjects  of  study  and 
ratiocination.  But  this  is  not  the  way  in  which  lan- 
guage is  regarded  by  those  who  use  it  daily,  that 
is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  by  the  whole  world. 
They  use  language  only  to  communicate  with  each 
ether  and  with  the  past :  all  of  them  with  the  past 
for  a  generation  or  two,  many  of  them  with  men  of 
remoter  times.  I  think  that  every  one  who  has  gone 
with  me  thus  far,  with  certain  exceptions  (those 
bitten  with  the  phonetic  mania,  whose  madness  is  in- 
curable), will  now  begin  to  suspect  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  new  alphabet  of  forty-two  letters  for  forty- 
two  sounds  would  make  the  inter-communication  just 
spoken  of,  if  not  impossible,  so  di3icult  and  uncertain 
that  people  at  large  would  not  submit  to  it. 

To  consider  a  very  familiar  illustration  or  two  of 


140  EVERY -DAY   ENGLISH. 

this.  There  is  a  certain  fruit  which  in  some  parts  of 
this  country  is  called  2^  par,  but  in  others  it  is  called 
a  peer,  while  by  the  best  speakers  here  and  in  Eng 
land  it  is  called  a  pare.  But  for  all  these  people 
the  sign  which  expresses  the  name  of  that  fruit,  and 
which  expressed  it  for  their  fathers,  and  expresses 
it  for  their  children,  is  pear.  Then  there  is  the  hair 
which  grows  upon  the  lower  part  of  a  man's  face :  I 
have  heard  this  often,  and  by  various  jjeople,  called 
variously  hard  and  hurd  and  haird,  although  by  the 
best  speakers  here  and  in  England  it  is  called  beerd, 
which  four  sounds,  be  it  remembered,  are  severally  the 
names  of  that  thing  to  these  several  sorts  of  people.^ 
Nor  does  any  one  of  these  sounds  lack  historical  and 
analogical  support.  But  the  one  sign  of  that  name  to 
all  these  people,  a  sign  which  they  all  recognize  the 
moment  they  see  it  in  a  book  or  in  a  newspaper,  is 
beard.  It  gives  these  people  no  trouble  whatever  to 
recognize  the  combination  of  signs  pear  and  bea7'd  as 
the  indications  of  the  names  of  the  objects  in  ques- 
tion. They  call  up  those  names  immediately,  "on 
sight,"  as  a  man  has  the  privilege  of  being  shot  in 
the  places  where  some  of  the  sounds  prevail.  But  a 
phonetic  printing  of  those  two  words  would  unsettle 
all  these  people.  They  would  have  to  make  a  special 
ntudy  of  them  ;  and  so  they  would  with  regard  to 
almost  every  word  in  the  language.  And  not  only 
would  they,  that  is,  the  people  at  present  living  in 
various  places,  be  obliged  to  make  this  study,  but  ali 
people  forever  afterward  would  be  obliged  to   study 

1  The  pronunciation  of  beard  as  burd,  or  rather  of  ear  as  ur.  has  strik 
tng  and  amusing  illustration  in  this  punning  passage  from  a  play  of  th< 
Elizabethan  period :  — 

"  I  hold  my  life  that  the  black  beard  [black  bird]  her  husband  whissell 
for  her."  (Westward  Hoe,  1607,  Act  II.,  Scene  2.) 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  141 

ivritten  English  in  the  same  manner.  For,  as  we 
have  seen,  it  is  impossible,  on  the  admission  of  all 
competent  students  of  language,  to  fix,  on  the  one 
side,  the  pronunciation  of  words,  and,  on  the  other, 
the  value  of  letters,  even  for  a  single  generation. 

That  time  is  lost,  and,  as  time  is  money,  that 
money  is  lost,  in  writing  letters  which  are  not  sounded 
is  also  not  so  clear  to  me  as  it  seems  to  be  to  Professor 
March  and  those  for  whom  he  has  so  strongly  spoken. 
Time  is  spent,  indeed,  in  writing  silent  letters ;  but  so 
is  time  spent  in  doing  anything;  and  looking  at  the 
Bubject  from  my  point  of  view,  and  I  venture  to  think 
from  Professor  March's,  it  is  not  quite  sure  that  all 
time  is  lost  that  is  not  spent  in  getting  or  in  saving 
money.  I  should  be  sorry  to  think  that  the  author 
of  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  grammar  took  that  view  of 
even  the  humblest  form  of  literary  labor.  And  may 
it  rightly  and  reasonably  be  said  that  our  spelling  is 
"  a  fatal  bar  through  life  to  easy  and  intelligent  read- 
ing "  ?  Such  an  assertion,  I  think,  cannot  safely  be 
made  in  the  face  of  the  daily  experience  of  the  readers 
of  the  millions  of  volumes  and  the  tens  of  millions  of 
newspapers  and  magazines  that  are  issued  yearly.  I 
.tm  very  sure  that  the  readers  of  those  publications  — 
those  of  them  who  can  do  anything  easily  and  intelli- 
gently—  read  them  with  little  or  no  thought  of  spell- 
ing, and  entirely  untroubled  by  it,  even  if  they  do  not 
always  spell  correctly  themselves.  And  as  to  the  mill- 
ions of  years  that  are  wasted  in  consequence  of  the 
DBCuliarities  of  English  spelling  and  in  consulting  dio- 
tionaries,  is  it  not  safe  to  assume  at  once  that  the 
assertions  of  this  passage  are,  to  say  the  least,  made 
in  the  very  strongest  possible  form  of  hyperbole  ? 

To  the  groans  of  Frenchmen  and  of  Germans  upon 


142  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

this  subject  I  confess  that  I  can  listen  with  a  dull  and 
unsympatliizing  ear,  and  to  the  petition  of  the  Japan- 
ese that  we  should  alter  our  spelling  for  their  conven- 
ience, with  a  quiet  laugh  at  their  notions  of  the  func- 
tions of  a  language  and  of  the  power  of  petitions  and 
of  legislation  over  it ;  in  which,  however,  it  must  be 
confessed  that  they  are  not  peculiar.  The  English 
language  is  made  neither  for  foreigners  nor  for  phi- 
lologists, but  for  the  use  of  English-speaking  people  ; 
it  is  made  by  themselves,  for  their  own  convenience, 
or,  if  you  please,  for  their  own  inconvenience,  and 
without  regard  to  the  peculiarities  of  speech  or  or- 
thography pertaining  to  other  peoples.  I,  for  one, 
hope  that  it  will  never  lose  its  distinctive  characteris- 
tics, however  difficult  they  may  be  of  acquirement  by 
foreigners.  It  might  be  convenient  for  publicists  to 
have  a  common  means  of  inter-coramunication,  as  Latin 
long  was,  and  to  a  certain  degree  still  is,  among  schol- 
ars, as  it  would  be  for  merchants  to  have  a  coin  which 
would  serve  as  a  common  resolvent  of  all  accounts  ; 
but  the  loss  of  peculiarities  of  language  cannot  be 
looked  for  while  those  of  race,  and  therefore  of  liter- 
ature, exist ;  and  to  deprive  the  world  of  these  would 
be  like  depriving  nature  of  her  peculiarities  of  scenery 
and  of  climate.  Without  them  life  would  lack  its 
Bavor.  One  of  the  deplorable  results  of  what  is  called 
:he  spread  of  civilization  is  the  laying  aside  of  na- 
tional costume  ;  and  language  is  the  intellectual  cos- 
tume of  race.  I  would  counter  the  petition  of  our  Jap- 
anese friends  as  to  English  orthograpliy  by  one  en- 
treating them  to  preserve  their  own  costume,  in  which 
they  are  picturesque,  dignified,  and  comfortable,  in- 
»tead  of  adopting  the  chimney-pot  hat,  the  formless 
trousers,  and  the  hideous  coat  of  western  civilization 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  143 

in  which  they  look  like  mulatto  barbers'  boys  or  am- 
bitious monkeys,  while  they  more  than  share  our  dis- 
comfort in  our  troublesome  disguises  by  the  unfitness 
of  our  clothes  to  their  climate. 

Complaint  of  our  orthography  comes  from  French- 
men with  an  ill  grace.  If  English  has  words  the 
spelling  and  pronunciation  of  which  are  incongruous, 
French  has  them  too,  not  less  striking  either  in  con- 
gruity  or  in  number.  If  written  English  has  letters 
which  are  not  heard  in  speech,  French  has  so  many 
that  they  cannot  be  counted  for  multitude.  Examples 
in  almost  every  phrase  in  common  use  will  occur  to 
every  reader  :  as,  monsieur,  mademoiselle,  billet  doux^ 
faux  pas,  il  fait  beau  temps,  je  suis  heureux,  faites  mes 
compliments,  tapis  vert,  coup  de  maitre.  See  also 
these  words  on  the  first  p^ge  of  the  first  French  book 
that  I  open  :  "  oil  tant  d'officiers  perdirent  leurs  vies,^^ 
'"'' vous  n'avez  point  d'Stat,''"'  "a  partir  de  ce  temps,^'' 
"  en  doigtanty  But  to  make  this  point  is  work  of 
supererogation.  As  to  variable  and  uncertain  pro- 
nunciation, it  may  be  remarked,  for  example,  that  e 
and  u  are  letters  which  have  a  very  marked,  and  the 
latter  a  very  peculiar,  sound  in  French;  yet  e  in  je 
and  u  in  brun  have  the  same  sound,  the  anomalous, 
obscure  vowel  sound  in  tuh  and  in  come,  while  in 
hrune  u  has  the  common  sound  heard  in  the  English 
rune,  and  in  brUlement  it  has  the  peculiar  indescrib- 
able and  unindicable  French  sound  ;  e  in  the  same 
word  having  in  the  second  syllable  again  the  sound  of 
u  in  hrun^  and  in  the  third  the  common  sound  which 
it  has  in  encore,  which  is  that  of  a  in  banc.  The  i  in 
timbale  and  in  epingle  has  the  same  sound  as  ai  in 
pain;  and  yet  in  pair  the  ai  has  exactly  the  same 
sound  which  the  same  combination  has  in  English. 


144  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

But  whj  go  into  particulars  as  to  the  manifold  in- 
congruities of  French  pronunciation,  which  would  be 
monstrous  if  tliey  were  not,  as  I  believe,  like  our  own, 
perfectly  natural  and  almost  unavoidable  ?  And  what 
shall  we  say  of  the  many  imperfect,  mangled,  half- 
Btifled  sounds  in  that  lang-uage,  making  it  almost  ri- 
diculous  and  almost  unfit  for  manly  speech,  — sounds 
like  those  of  en,  in,  an,  em,  im,  in  which  all  distinc- 
tion of  vowel  and  consonant  is  swallowed  up  in  half- 
formed  nasality,  —  and  of  eux  and  ut  and  tre  final 
and  aille,  to  pass  by  numberless  others  ?  Surely  it 
would  become  French-speaking  people  to  avoid  mak- 
ing complaints  of  the  pronunciation  of  other  lan- 
guages. Nor  is  German  without  like  monstrosities  of 
written  and  spoken  language,  although,  as  far  as  my 
knowledge  of  it  goes,  they  are  less  numerous  and  less 
striking  than  those  of  French  and  Euglish. 

However,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  incongruities  of  Eng- 
lish speech  and  English  spelling  are  great  and  mani- 
fold. That,  for  example,  urn,  earn,  work,  bird,  were^ 
scourge,  and  tierce  should  have  the  same  vowel  sound, 
and  that  the  like  should  be  true  of  mine,  pie,  eye^ 
buy,  and  height,  would  seem  at  the  first  thought  to 
show  that  in  spoken  and  written  Englisli  the  relation 
between  sound  and  sign  is  almost  indeterminable. 
The  frequently  cited  through,  rough,  cough,  doughy 
and  lough  may  well  puzzle  foreigners.  But  none  of 
these,  or  of  their  kind,  it  seems  to  me,  should  puzzle 
or  trouble  English-speaking  men.  For,  unless  I  am 
greatly  in  error,  the  perplexity  and  the  grief  of  mind 
that  many  do  bring  themselves  to  feel  on  this  sub- 

1  This  TTord  was  pronounced  ware  iu  Shakespeare's  day,  and  later.    Iti 
tnalogy  is  with  there. 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  145 

ject  arise  from  a  misapprehension  of  the  facts.  V/e 
do  not  really  pronounce  u  and  ea  and  o  and  i  alike  ; 
nor  do  we  pronounce  ouc/h  oo,  nor  vff,  nor  off^  nor  o7i, 
nor  oc7i,  all  of  the  latter  being  easily  traceable  to  one 
guttural  sound  something  like  that  of  the  Greek  X' 
No  intelligent  man,  if  asked  what  is  the  sound  of  w, 
Avould  give  that  of  the  vowel  sound  in  urn,  or  if  of  o 
the  vowel  sound  in  work,  or  if  of  i  or  e  the  vowel 
sounds  in  bird  and  were  ;  all  these  sounds  being  in 
fact  one.  He  would  no  more  do  this  than  he  would 
Bay,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  correct  utterance  of 
a  well-known  line  of  Pope's  is,  The  proh-jjeer  stew- 
die  ohf  mane-kind  ice  mane.  It  by  no  means  fol- 
lows, because  the  word  which  vve  spell  lord  is  pro- 
nounced lawrd,  that  we  pronounce  o  aiv.  Such  a 
conclusion  would  reverse  the  relations  of  spoken  and 
written  language.  For  it  is  the  former  which  is  lan- 
guage ;  and  the  latter  is  a  series  of  merely  arbitrary 
and  conventional  signs  by  which  we  represent  it  and 
call  it  to  mind.  And  this  representing  and  calling 
to  mind  is  not  that  of  the  elements  of  a  written  word, 
but  of  a  whole  spoken  word.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  original  relations  of  sounds  and  letters,  of 
Bpoken  and  written  language,  such  are  the  I'elations 
they  have  at  present.  Spoken  language  is  one  thing; 
and  it  is  an  absolute  thing,  self-existent  and  not 
limited  and  controlled,  although  it  may  be,  and  to 
I  certain  degree  is,  modified  by  written  language, 
which  is  quite  another  thing.  It  may  be  objected 
that  this  is  just  what  is  complained  of,  —  that  this 
Beverance  of  the  relations  of  spoken  and  written  lan- 
guage is  the  grievance  against  Avhicli  the  phono- 
graphic school  of  phonologists  protest,  the  wrong 
which  they  seek  to  right.     Tu  which  the  reply  is  that 

10 


146  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

this  severance  is  involved  in  the  nature  of  things , 
and  that  it  is  unavoidable,  at  least  to  a  certain  de- 
gree, except  by  such  a  continual  change  of  orthog- 
raphy as  would  make  written  language  as  variable 
as  spoken.  This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of 
the  last  point  in  the  passage  which  is  the  occasion  of 
these  remarks. 

Before  considering  this,  however,  let  me,  at  the  risk 
of  violating  the  good  maxim,  "  Qui  s' excuse  s^accuse,'^ 
declare  that,  although  I  believe  it  to  be  true  that,  in 
Professor  March's  words,  "  tliere  are  literaiy  amateurs 
that  fall  in  love  with  these  squintings  and  lispings," 
I  am  not  one  of  those  who  are  thus  besotted.  If 
there  be  a  fibre  of  conservatism  in  my  complexion,  it 
is  not  in  regard  to  orthography  and  pronunciation, 
as  to  which  I  am  personally  ready  for  very  radical 
measures.  I  would  begin,  for  instance,  by  turning  k 
out  of  the  English  alphabet,  where  it  has  no  business, 
and  restoring  to  c  its  proper  sound  and  functions ; 
so  that,  for  example,  we  should  pronounce  sceptre 
skeptre,  and  not  write  skeptic  (any  more  than  we 
should  write  skeptik^  but  sceptic,  and  write  thic  and 
hric  instead  of  thick  and  brick.  I  would  stay  that 
tendency  to  throw  a  strong  accent  upon  the  antepe- 
nultimate syllable,  merely  because  it  is  the  antepe- 
nultimate, which  not  only  mars  our  language  by  an 
awkward,  jerky,  anti-rhythmical  huddle  of  sounds, 
but  often  hides  meaning  and  violates  common-sense, 
giving  us  such  words  as  ge-Sgraphy.,  hiSg-raphy,  or^ 
thdg-raphy,  8ten-<Sgraphy,  in  which  compounded  words 
tne  o]  ly  stress  is  laid  upon  a  syllable  which  has  no 
proper  or  significant  existence  as  such,  it  being  com- 
posed of  the  last  letter  of  one  word  and  tlie  first  let- 
ter of  another,  each  torn  away  from   a  place  where 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  141 

it  sounds  well  and  means  something,  —  a  tendency, 
or  rule,  or  "  law,"  as  some  folk  call  such  whimsies, 
which  threatens  to  give  us,  indeed  requires,  such 
abominations  as  al-l6p-athy,  ho-moe-dp-atliy,  pho-tdg- 
raphy,  and  te-leg-raphy.  With  regard  to  the  last  two 
words,  however,  and  in  a  measure  the  first  two  also, 
the  common-sense  and  the  good  ear  of  people  in  gen- 
eral protects  them  against  this  distortion.  In  spite 
of  the  dictionaries,  they  say  plidtogrdpliy  and  tele- 
grdphy^  and  generally  dllopdthy^  hdmoeopdthy,  the 
second  accent  being  somewhat  lighter  than  the  first. 
In  all  such  matters  we  must  conform  to  usage  whether 
we  will  or  not,  unless  we  would  seem  affected,  pe- 
dantic, and  to  a  certain  extent  ridiculous  ;  and  there- 
fore I  suppose  that  erelong  we  snail  be  talking  of 
te-lSg-raphy  and  te-leg-raphers.  But  how  much  bet- 
ter the  rhythm  of  these  words,  and  how  much  more 
preservative  of  their  sense,  if  they  were  pronounced 
according  to  their  formation,  with  two  light  accents 
instead  of  one  heavy  one,  tele-grdph-y ^ pli6 -to-grdph-y^ 
hd-moeo-pdth-y,  dl-lo-pdth-y^  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
Bay,  gS-o-grd-phy^  hi-o-grd-phy^  6r-tho-grd-phy,  stSrv- 
o-grd-phy^  hopeless  as  their  case  is  by  the  bad  usage 
of  generations.  This,  however,  only  by  the  bye,  and 
by  way  of  indicating  my  freedom  from  prejudice 
against  change  merely  as  change. 

Nevertheless  it  does  seem  to  me  that  there  is 
Bmie  "advantage  in  the  study  of  etymology  "  to  be 
derived  from  the  preservation  in  orthography  of  the 
remnants  of  the  elements  and  the  roots  of  words. 
For  example,  a  great  many  people  say  in  affirmative 
reply  to  a  lady,  "  Yes'm,"  and  it  is  at  least  quite 
possible  that  such  may  become  the  general  usage. 
Now  here  the  '??i,  which  is  a  mer^  nasal  hum,  is  the 
"emnant  of  mea   domina^  \\\q;\\v wg  '' luy   lady,"  "  my 


148  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

mistress ;  "  the  steps  of  decay  being,  mea  domino^ 
madamina,  madame,  madam,  ma'ayn,  mum,  'm.  Now 
I  do  venture  to  believe  that  mea  domina  is  far  more 
easily  traceable  by  the  etymologist  in  madam  than  in 
'wi,  or  even  in  mum.  So,  for  example,  it  would  seem 
that  the  French  dit,  which  is  the  descendant  of  the 
Latin  dictus,  and  which  used  to  be  written  diet,  is 
much  more  obviousl}^  connected  with  its  original  than 
if  it  were  written  di,  as  it  is  pronounced,  or  rather 
as  the  word  which  the  letters  d  i  t  represent  is  pro- 
nounced, and  very  much  more  so  than  if  the  sound  di 
were  represented  by  some  "  palseographic  "  or  phono- 
graphic contrivance  of  arbitrary  signs,  by  which  the 
d  should  be  replaced  (only  for  example)  by  A  and 
the  i  (again  only  for  example)  by  -q.  It  will  be  seen 
by  any  student  of  language  that  this  in  no  way 
touches  the  application  of  any  well-established  law 
of  word  formation,  or  of  phonetic  decay,  such,  for  ex- 
ample, as  that  by  which  in  Italian  the  Latin  I  passes 
into  i,  and  from  pluvium,  plumbum,  and  planta  we 
have  piova,  piomha,  and  pianta. 

One  other  case  in  point  may  prove  interesting,  if 
not  convincing.  If  a  philologist  of  the  future,  with- 
out certain  special  knowledge,  or  indeed  if  any  person 
without  such  knowledge,  were  to  meet  with  an  ac- 
lount  of  the  lamentations  of  a  musician  over  his 
broken  shell,  what  would  he  understand  by  it,  and 
what  would  be  the  notion  that  he  would  form  of  the 
shell,  the  destruction  of  which  was  the  cause  of  such 
grief  to  a  musician  ?  Naturally  he  would  think  of 
the  origin  of  Apollo's  lyre,  and  suppose  that  here 
was  a  poetic  use  of  the  old  Greek  legend.  But  he 
would  be  wrong  ;  and  when  he  found  out  that  he 
was  so,  and  that  this  shell  w^as  the  musician's  name 
for  a  big  fiddle,  I  take  it  that  the  etymology  of  the 


ENGLISH   SPELLING.  149 

word  would  not  be  very  obvious,  certainly  not  so 
clear  as  if  he  had  found  it  written  eelle^  although  it 
was  pronounced  shell. 

This  is  no  supposed  case.  Among  professional  mu- 
Bicians  a  violoncello  has  come  to  be  called  a  shell,  and 
this  name  for  it  is  spreading  rapidly  among  amateui's. 
It  has  come,  as  any  one  may  see,  from  a  dropping  of 
the  first  part  of  a  long  word.  Its  last  syllables,  cello 
(tshello')  in  Italian,  celle  (^selW)  in  French,  and  cell 
(tshell)  in  German,  have  naturally  and  easily  taken 
the  pronunciation  of  shell  for  shortness  and  for  ease ; 
and  we  thus  find  the  instrument  spoken  of  by  an  ab- 
breviation of  its  name,  which  omits  entirely  the  es- 
sential and  really  designating  part  of  it,  violon  (of 
which  the  stem  is  viol),  and  preserves  only  the  dimin- 
utive affix  cello,  which  again  is  degraded  into  shell. 
According  to  the  theory  of  orthography  and  pronun- 
ciation which  we  have  been  considering,  such  should 
be  the  received  spelling  of  the  word,  and  we  should 
write,  not  of  a  violoncello  player,  or  even  of  a  'cello 
player,  but  of  a  shell  player  or  a  shellist.  Moreover, 
we  are  called  on  to  believe  that  the  etymologist  would 
find  his  path  as  clear  in  tracing  shell  as  in  doing  tho 
same  with  violoncello. 

These  are  mere  hints  and  suggestions  of  reasons 
for  doubting  the  entire  truth  of  the  assertion  that 
"written  records  are  valuable  to  the  philologist  just 
in  proportion  as  they  are  accurate  records  of  speech 
AS  spoken  from  year  to  year."  If  there  be  no  force 
In  these  reasons,  we  may,  as  far  as  etymology  is  con- 
cerned, write,  instead  of  phonetic  news  and  pazV  of 
iiveezers,  fonetic  nuz  &,nd  parrot  wheezers  ;  although 
there  may  perhaps  be  other  than  etymological  rea- 
ions  against  the  adoption  of  those  as  established  or 
thographies. 


CHAPTER  X. 

SPtLLIXG   REFORMERS    OF    THE    PAST. 

The  spelling  reformers  held  a  convention  in  En£-- 
land.  And  why  not?  Everything  now  is  done,  oi 
at  least  regulated,  by  a  convention.  The  cooking- 
stove  makers  had  held  their  convention,  and  why 
should  not  the  spelling  reformers,  cookers  or  cooks  of 
language,  have  theirs  ?  Not  that  I  would  by  any 
means  imply  that  there  is  as  much  reason  in  hold- 
ing a  convention  to  reform  or  to  regulate  written 
language  as  there  is  in  holding  one  to  regulate  and 
reform  the  manner  of  making  and  selling  cooking- 
stoves.  For  stoves,  whether  used  to  destroy  and  to 
render  unwholesome  and  ill-tasted  the  flesh  of  eata- 
ble beasts  and  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  or  to  make  the 
air  of  houses  unfit  for  human  creatures  to  breathe, 
are  made,  contrived,  and  wrought  with  malice  afore- 
thought and  by  the  instigation  of  the  devil,  —  the 
first  dealer  and  lai'gest  manufacturer  and  proprietor 
in  the  stove  line  ;  whereas  language,  even  in  its  writ- 
ten form,  is  the  result  of  a  long  and  almost  uncon- 
scious process,  over  which  no  man  or  assemblage  of 
men  has,  or  can  have,  any  direct  control  whatever. 
Observe  that  I  have  said  that  this  process  is  almont 
unconscious,  and  that  men  have  no  direct  control  over 
it ;  for  language  is  made  by  men  for  their  own  use, 
and  consciousness  does  enter  into  its  formation  to  a 
certain  degiee,  and  man's  will  does  indirectly  cnntroj 
it.     But  no  sort  of   men,  however  learned  or  skillful 


SPELLING   REFORMERS   OF    THE    PAST.  151 

sail  come  together  and  lay  down  laws  for  making  lan- 
guage and  bringing  it  into  vogue,  as  other  men  may 
convene  and  lay  down  laws  for  the  making  and  sell- 
ing of  stoves.  In  the  former  case  the  thing  produced 
is  the  result  of  the  informal  consent  of  all  those  who 
make  and  use  it,  including  the  stove-makers. 

As  to  the  doings  of  the  convention  of  the  British 
spelling  reformers,  I  shall  have  something  to  say  here- 
after. I  propose  now  to  ask  the  attention  of  my  read- 
ers to  the  doings  of  a  few  of  the  predecessors  of  these 
reformers,  or,  I  should  rather  say,  to  point  out  that 
they  have  had  predecessors,  which  many  of  them,  in 
this  country,  if  not  in  England,  seem  to  be  ignorant 
of,  or  at  least  to  ignore.  Even  a  moderate  acquaint- 
ance with  what  has  been  endeavored  in  this  respect 
in  regard  to  the  English  language,  and  with  what  de- 
gree of  success,  would  seem  to  be  enough  to  check 
the  self-sufficiency  with  which  they  propose  to  reform 
our  written  language  by  deliberate  whereas-ing  and 
resolving. 

In  one  of  the  delightful  little  songs  that  Shake- 
speare dropped  into  his  plays  is  the  line, 

"  A  long  while  ago  the  world  began," 

which  suggests  a  truth  that  every  thinking,  observ- 
ing man,  who  looks  before  and  after,  finds  impressed 
upon  him  more  deeply  day  by  day.  The  new  is 
antiquated ;  reform  is  musty  ;  and  even  progress  is 
hoary  with  the  snows  of  ages.  English  spelling  re- 
foi  m  is  not  a  new  "  movement ;  '  and  not  only  is  it 
old,  but  it  began  actually  before  the  language  had 
'issumed  the  form  which  is  known  to  philologists  aa 

oiodern   English.      It  has   always   failed,  absolutely, 

i^holly,  utterly. 


152  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Some  writers  upon  the  subject  have  given  to  Sir 
John  Clieke  the  credit  of  being  the  first  to  attempt 
the  reform  of  English  spelling.  Cheke  was  a  scholar, 
and  a  great  one  for  his  time  —  the  reigns  of  Edward 
VI.  and  Mary  (he  was  born  A.  D.  1514,  and  died 
A.  D.  1557)  ;  and  when  very  few  men  in  England 
knew  anything  of  Greek,  he  was  professor  of  that 
language  at  Cambridge.  He  gave  much  attention  to 
its  pronunciation,  and  had  a  sharp  literary  discus- 
sion on  that  subject  with  Bishop  Gardiner,  which  was 
published  at  Basle,  A.  D,  1555.  It  was  natural  that 
such  a  man  should  be  led  to  like  studies  of  his  own 
language,  and  to  tamper  with  its  spelling.  We  may 
glance  at  what  he  proposed  anon.  But  more  than 
three  hundred  years  before  his  day  —  that  is,  more 
than  six  hundred  years  ago  —  another  man  made  a 
very  remarkable  endeavor  in  the  same  direction. 

This  first  English  spelling  reformer  was  a  monk 
named  Ormin,  who  was  a  North  of  England  man,  and 
who  about  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century 
wrote  a  religious  poem,  or  rather  put  into  verse  form 
homilies  founded  upon  the  gospel  of  the  day  in  the 
church  service.  His  work,  which  exists  only  in  one 
manuscript,  supposed  to  be  his  own,  is  imperfect,  but 
consists  of  more  than  two  thousand  lines.  Not  content 
with  such  a  serious  performance,  he  must  undertake 
to  reform  the  spelling  of  his  time,  which  was  very 
irregular ;  and  he  wrote  his  poem  in  a  spelling  of  his 
own  invention,  by  which  he  hoped  to  indicate  the 
oronunciation  beyond  mistake.  His  method  was  a 
very  simple  one,  and  not  ill  adapted-  to  his  purpose 
Ft  consisted  chiefly  in  using  single  consonants  .after 
vowels  which  had  their  long  or  name  soun<l9,  and 
ilouble  consonants  after    those  which  were  sliort   or 


SPELLING   REFORMERS   OF    THE   PAST.  153 

**  obscure."  The  former  sound  we  now  generally  in- 
dicate by  tlie  use  of  final  e  after  a  single  consonant : 
for  example,  Tnan  mane^  met  mete,  fir  fire,  or  ore^ 
us  use.  But  Ormin  spelled  mane  man,  and  man 
mann;  fire  fir,  and  fir  firr,  etc.  He  believed  in  his 
reformed  spelling,  as  all  his  successors  have  believed 
each  in  his  own ;  and  he  insists  strongly  upon  the 
preservation  of  it  by  every  person  who  copies  his 
poem, —  of  printing  he  had  of  course  no  notion.  In  a 
passage  which  I  modernize  in  phrase  as  well  as  in 
spelling  he  says :  "  Whoever  shall  wish  to  write  this 
book,  him  I  bid  that  he  write  it  riglit,  ....  and 
that  he  look  well  that  he  writes  a  letter  twice  when- 
ever it  is  so  in  the  book  ;  for  he  may  not  else  in  Eng- 
lish write  right  the  word."  Thus  it  has  ever  been 
with  the  spelling  reformer  ;  he  believes  that  unless  his 
Bpelling  is  adopted  readable  English  cannot  be  writ- 
ten. A  few  lines  of  the  poem  will  give  a  notion  of 
the  effect  produced  by  the  system  of  this  first  of  the 
reformers  of  Englisli  spelling  ;  that  is,  the  first  of 
whom  we  yet  have  any  knowledge ;  for  even  of  him 
it  may  be  true  that  brave  men  lived  before  Aga- 
memnon :  — 

Off  all  J)iss  god  U3S  brinnge{)J)  word 

7  errnde  7  god  tit>l)ennde 

Goddspell,  "7  forr^Ji  maj^  itt  well 

God  errnde  ben  ^ehatenn. 

Forr  mann  ma^^  uppo  Goddspellboc 

Godnessess  findenn  seffne 

^att  ure  Laferrd  Jesu  Crist 

Uss  hafe{)J)  don  onn  erfe 

pnuh.  ^att  he  comm  to  manne,  7  I)urrh 

pzXt  he  warrj)  mann  onn  ex^} 

*  The  followinp:  modern  Eng-iish  version  of  this  passage  \s  as  little 
thanged  from  the  original  as  ]  xssihle  :  — 


154  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

It  is  not  worth  our  while  to  vex  ourselves  with  the 
exauiination  of  more  than  two  lines,  and  a  few  words 
of  this.  Whoever  chooses  to  examine  the  poem  care- 
fully will  find  two  long  extracts  from  it  in  Professor 
Corson's  (of  Cornell  University)  excellent  "  Hand- 
Book  of  Anglo-Saxon  and  Early  English,"  by  the 
Btudy  of  which  alone  any  capable  person  who  is  in 
earnest  may  attain  a  very  fair  knowledge  of  the  early 
history  of  our  language. 

The  first  line  shows  by  the  doubling  of  the  conso- 
nants that  "  of,"  "all,"  "  this,"  "  us,"  and  "  bringeth  " 
were  pronounced  six  hundred  years  ago  nearly,  if  not 
exactly,  as  they  are  now.  There  may  have  been  some 
Blight  difference  in  the  sounds  of  the  shortened  vowels, 
but  that  is  not  probable.  But  we  also  see  by  the 
spelling  in  this  line  and  in  the  second  and  the  fourth 
lines  that  God  was  pronounced  with  the  o  long,  to 
ihyme  with  load  and  hode^  and  that  the  o  in  ivord 
was  pronounced  as  we  still  pronounce  the  o  in  sword, 
which,  by  the  way,  was  once  written  siverd,  but  nev- 
ertheless pronounced  swohrd,  as  we  pronounce  sew 
soh.  In  Goddspell  we  have  the  early  form  of  gospel, 
and  the  double  d  shows  that  combination  had  already 
exercised  its  modifying  influence  upon  the  first  sylla* 
ble,  the  sound  of  which  in  the  compound  had  passed 
from  GoJid  to  God.     The  d  was  then  dropped,  the 

Of  all  this  God  us  bringeth  word 

&  message  &  good  tidings 

Gospel,  &  therefore  may  it  well 

God  message  be  called. 

For  mau  may  upon  gospelbook 

Goodnesses  find  seven 

That  our  I>ord  Jesu  Christ 

Us  hath  done  on  earth, 

Through  [tliat  is,  because]  that  he  came  to  man,  &  througli 

That  he  was  uuiu  on  earth. 


SPELLING  REFORMERS  OF  THE  PAST.      155 

rowel  sound  retained,  and  the  result  was  our  gospel. 
In  ffodnessess,  the  omission  of  the  double  d,  we  may 
be  sure,  was  an  oversight.  The  poem  presents  not  a 
few  such. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  refer  to  all  the  words 
which,  according  to  this  passage,  had  the  same  sound 
in  the  North  of  England  six  hundred  years  ago,  even 
before  the  formation  of  what  is  known  as  modern 
English,  that  they  have  in  the  general  usage  of  the 
present  day.  The  reader  who  is  sufficiently  interested 
in  the  subject  to  care  to  know  these  will  easily  find 
them  without  assistance.  But  the  seventh  line  is 
worthy  of  some  attention.  The  second  word  in  this 
line,  ure,  is  our,  and  we  see  that  the  u  was  sounded 
long  and  with  the  name  sound  of  the  vowel.  But 
that  sound  was  not  our  sound  of  u.  Ormin's  ure 
was  not  sounded  to  rhyme  with  our  pure  and  eure. 
It  had  the  Continental  sound,  which  we  strangely  in- 
dicate by  00,  and  which  some  gentlemen  and  ladies 
Btill  give  it,  when,  for  example,  they  s-dj  funiitoor,  in 
which  they  are  merely  a  little  old-fashioned. ^  The 
pronoun  our  was  then  and  for  a  long  time  afterward 
pronounced  oor.  If  any  one  thinks  this  strange,  let 
him  reflect  how  he  still  pronounces  the  other  pro- 
noun your,  which  I  venture  to  say  is  to  rhyme  it, 
not  with  hour,  but  with  poor,  just  as  English-speak- 
ing people  did  six  centuries  ago.  In  the  next  word, 
laferrd,  we  have  the  Anglo-Saxon  hlaford,  a  master, 
in  an  early  stage  of  its  passage  into  our  modern 
lord.  In  the  name  Jesu  Crist  tlie  j  was  sounded 
like  y,  and  the  vowels  had  the  sounds  \vhich  they 

-  Mr.  Ellis  thinks  that  this  u  {oo)  passed  into  the  modern  English  u  {too) 
18  early  as  1300.  It  is  dangerous  to  differ  openly  from  Mr.  Ellis  upon  a 
jistorical  point  of  EnglLi^h  phonology;  but  such  is  not  the  impression  lef* 
Upon  Hie  bj"  my  reading. 


1.56  EVEEY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Btill  Lave  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  The  sound 
of  this  line,  therefore,  as  the  people  of  Ormin's  day 
heard  it,  was,  to  indicate  it  as  best  I  can,  some- 
what in  a  "  glossic  "  fashion,  "  That  oor  lafurd  yay- 
600  creest,"  which  corresponds  to  our  "That  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ." 

Ormin's  work  is  very  valuable  for  the  light  thrown 
by  it  upon  the  pronunciation  of  English  at  the  re- 
mote period  when  it  was  written  ;  and  we  ought 
therefore  to  be  thankful  for  the  freak  that  placed  him 
in  the  van  of  the  noble  army  of  spelling  reformers. 
But  even  its  evidence  as  to  the  sounds  of  words,  as 
its  author  heard,  or  thought  that  he  heard,  them 
spoken,  is  attainable  only  by  comparison  and  conject- 
ure after  previous  study  of  the  subject.  As  to  any 
effect  upon  spelling,  it  had  no  more  than  if  he  had 
shaken  so  many  types  in  a  dice-box  and  thrown  them 
upon  the  page.  He  called  his  poem  "The  Ormulum," 
from  his  own  name  ;  and  well  he  might  do  so,  for  hia 
attempt  to  make  spelling  conform  to  speech  only  shut 
him  out  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  reduced  his 
poem  to  the  condition  of  an  entirely  private  and  per- 
sonal affair,  with  one  reader,  —  the  writer  himself. 
There  is  no  evidence  whatever  that  any  other  person 
than  he  ever  read  a  page  of  it  until  withm  the  last 
half  century  or  so,  when  it  was  found  to  have  a  phil- 
ological interest  and  value.  It  was  known  to  schol- 
ars ;  but  even  they  passed  it  by,  supposing  it  to  be 
Gothic,  not  dreaming  that  it  was  English.  And  such, 
in  a  great  measure  at  least,  nmst  be  the  result  of  any 
effort,  whether  made  by  one  man  or  a  hundred,  to 
get  up  a  new  and  "  reasonable  "  orthography. 

Let  us  now  consider  our  subject  in  connection  witfc 
the  labors  of  other  early  spelling  reformers,  who,  how 
B\<^\\  did  not  prove  to  be  reformers  of  spelling. 


SPELLING   REFORMERS   OF   THE   PAST.  167 

Of  these,  Sir  John  Cheke,  already  mentioned,  was 
the  second  of  whom  we  have  any  knowledge.  His 
biographer,  Strype,  tells  us  that  Cheke  was  led  into 
his  efforts  at  reform  because  "  the  writing  and  spell- 
ing of  oui  English  tongue  was  in  those  times  very 
bad,  even  scholars  themselves  taking  little  heed  how 
they  spelt."  By  very  bad  spelling  Strype  meant  very 
irregular  and  unsettled  spelling.  The  phonetic  re- 
formers would  regard  the  spelling  just  before  Cheke's 
day  as  really  better  than  that  of  Strype's  day  (about 
two  centuries  ago),  which  is  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses that  now  in  use ;  for  the  former  was  more  pho- 
netic. People  then  spelled  without  reference  to  any 
standard,  for  there  was  none,  and  merely  with  the 
purpose  of  expressing  by  letters,  after  a  fashion  and 
as  the  notion  took  them,  the  sounds  which  they  gave 
to  words.  The  consequence  was  irregularity,  or  what 
Strype  calls,  and  what  would  now  be  called,  bad  spell- 
ing. 

It  is  to  be  remarked,  as  being  much  to  our  purpose, 
that  the  vei'y  scholars  who  spelled  English  so  badly 
or  irregularly  spelled  Latin  very  well,  that  is,  with 
strict  conformity  to  one  standard.  Now,  the  reason 
of  this  difference  is  that  Latin  was  a  dead  language 
and  English  a  living  one.  Since  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing, at  least,  there  has  been  but  one  way  of  spelling 
Latin  among  all  peoples,  —  the  way  in  vogue  at  the 
Ciceronian  period.  As  to  this,  scholars  were  and  are 
very  particular ;  and  what  was  known  as  "literature" 
before  Cheke's  day,  and  for  some  time  afterward,  was 
written  in  Latin.  Men  of  letters  then  wrote  their 
books  and  serious  treatises,  and  even  held  their  oral 
discussions,  in  Latin,  which  was  cailed  the  universal 
language.     Their  own  languages  they  held  in  a  kind 


158  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

of  contempt,  each  calling  his  own  respectively  "  the 
vulgar  tongue,"  vulgar  here  having  had,  however,  its 
original  meaning,  comuion,  with,  nevertheless,  a  sug- 
gestion that  wiiat  was  common  was  also  unclean.  But 
Latin,  when  it  was  a  living  language,  a  speech,  varied 
in  its  spelling  from  time  to  time,  and  even  with  indi- 
viduals. Latin  of  only  two  generations  before  Cicero's 
day  was  not  spelled  as  he  spelled  it ;  and  although 
the  Roman  literature  of  the  Augustan  age  did,  by  its 
supremacy,  much  to  fix  the  language  in  its  written 
form,  it  erelong  began  to  change.  The  people  at 
large  then  did  not  write,  and  therefore  did  not  spell  ; 
for  spelling  has  nothing  to  do  with  speech,  even  cor- 
rect and  elegant  speech  ;  and  the  spelling  of  later  pe- 
riods, as  it  appears  in  inscriptions,  and  even  in  man- 
uscripts, is  not  that  of  Cicero  and  his  contempora- 
ries and  immediate  successors.  The  bad  or  irregular 
spelling  of  English,  and  also  of  other  languages,  three 
hundred  years  ago,  was  phonetic,  and  was  due  chiefly 
to  the  absence  of  any  standard.  The  phonetic  spell- 
ing reformers  are  scornful  of  the  accepted  spelling  of 
English,  because,  as  they  say,  it  has  been  imposed 
upon  us  by  printers  and  proof-readers.  But  it  is  to 
the  introduction  of  printing  that  we  owe  it  that  there 
.s  any  uniformity  in  our  spelling.  The  diffusion  of 
:3rinted  books  among  the  people,  and  the  abandon- 
ment by  men  of  letters  of  Latin  for  "  the  vulgar 
tongue,"  which  became  necessary  when  they  ceased 
to  write  only  for  the  learned  class,  and  addressed  what 
we  now  call  the  general  public,  made  uniformity  de- 
sirable, if  not  necessary,  and  that  uniformity  was 
brought  about  —  very  gradually  indeed — by  the  de« 
ipised  printers  and  proof-readers.^ 

1  As  to  the  correctors  of  the  press,  it  seems  to  me  that  Ihiur  influence  cai> 


SPELLING    REFORMERS    OF    THE    PAST.  158 

Cheke's  endeavor  was  in  the  contrary  direction  from 
Ormin's.  Ormin  attempted  to  indicate  the  true  sound 
of  vowels  by  the  use  of  consonants,  using  the  latter 
doubly  or  singly  for  that  purpose.  Cheke  directed 
his  attention  to  the  vowels  themselves.  The  final  e, 
which  now  generally  has  only  the  function  of  indi- 
cating a  long  sound  in  a  preceding  vowel,  had  once, 
generally,  an  historical  and  phonetic  significance. 
This  it  had  ceased  to  have  even  before  Cheke's  day  ; 
and  he  would  have  done  away  with  it  altogether, 
spelling,  for  example,  thus  :  excus,  ^:)razs,  commun, 
instead  of  excuse,  praise,  commune.  But  in  other 
words,  inconsistently,  it  w^ould  seem,  he  indicated 
the  long  sound  by  doubling  the  vowel,  writing  maad, 
straat,  daar,  for  made,  strait  (or  straight"),  dare,  which 
Ormin  would  have  written  mad,  strat,  dar.  Like  all 
phonetic  reformers  of  spelling,  he  was  intolerant  of 
silent  letters,  and  wrote  frute,  wold,  faut,  dout,  for 
fruit,  would,  fault,  and  doubt.  By  these  spellings  we 
see  that  in  his  day —  and  it  was  so  long  afterward 
—  the  I  was  pronounced  in  ivould  and  was  not  pro 
nounced  in  fault.  The  fashion  has  changed  since 
then,  and  we  now  leave  the  I  out  of  would,  and  pro- 
nounce it  in  fault.  The  latter  is  an  instance  of  the 
less  common  change  in  pronunciation,  in  which  the 
progress  of  time  much  oftener  destroys  letters  than 
it  restores  them.  It  is  needless  to  give  more  time  to 
Cheke's  attempted  spelling  reforms.  They  had  no 
effect  whatever.    Printers  and  proof-readers  had  more 

lot  have  been  otherwise  than  for  good  upon  written  language.  For  niy- 
Belf,  I  have  owed  so  much  to  the  intelligence,  the  carefulness,  and  the 
^ood-nature  of  proof-readers,  they  have  sc  often  saved  me  from  the  conse- 
quences of  haste  and  numan  imperfection,  and  I  have  found  them  gea- 
►rally  so  capable  of  their  work,  and  so  faithful  and  willing  and  patient  in 
•ne  doing  of  it,  that  I  feel  as  if  T  ought  gladly  to  acknowledge  them  as 
ell  >w  craftsmen,  to  whom  it  becomes  me  to  be  grateful  and  respectful. 


160  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

power  in  this  direction  than  the  distinguished  scholax 
who  "  taught  Cambridge  and  King  Edward  Greek." 
Soon  after  Cheke's  death,  Sir  Thomas  Smith  pub- 
lished, in  1568,  a  book,  the  object  of  which  was  to 
improve  orthography.  Although  the  object  of  his  en- 
deavor was  English  orthography,  he  wrote  his  book 
in  Latin.  It  was  "De  Recta  et  Emendata  Linorua. 
Anglicanaa  Scriptione,"  —  concerning  a  correct  and 
amended  writing  of  the  EngUsh  hmguage.  At  this 
early  day  he  proposed  a  phonetic  alphabet ;  and  he 
was,  I  believe,  the  first  to  do  so.  His  failure,  if  I 
am  right,  was  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  like  fruitless 
efforts.  The  craze  has  since  then  been  continuous. 
The  very  next  year,  1569,  John  Hart,  who  was  Ches- 
ter Herald,  published  a  book  the  purpose  of  which 
was  to  induce  people  to  spell  phonetically,  that  they 
might  represent  exactly  the  sounds  they  uttered  in 
speech.  He  condescended  to  write  in  English.  His 
book  was  "  An  Orthographic  containing  the  Due 
Order  and  Reason  howe  to  Write  or  Paint  th'  Image 
of  Mannes  Voice  most  like  to  Life  or  Nature  ;  "  and 
his  preface  was  addressed  "  To  the  doubtfull  of  the 
English  Orthographic."  In  this  preface,  after  defin- 
ing orthography,  he  says  that  according  to  it  we 
"  ought  to  use  an  order  in  writing  which,  nothing 
cared  for  unto  this  day,  our  predecessors  have  ben  (as 
it  were)  drouned  in  a  maner  of  negligence,  to  bee 
contented  with  such  maner  of  writing  as  they  and  we 
now  have  found  from  age  to  age,  without  any  regard 
to  the  several  parts  of  the  voice,  which  the  writing 
ought  to  represent."  He  closes  his  address  thus  : 
"  And  accordinglye  here  foloweth  a  certain  order  of 
true  writing  of  the  speech,  and  founded  upon  reason 
—  mother  of  all  sciences  ;  wherewith  you  may  hap 


SPELLING   REFORMERS   OF   THE   PAST.  161 

pily  be  profited  ;  and  so  health  and  tlie  grace  of  God 
be  with  you.     So  be  it." 

With  the  Chester  herald's  true  writing  of  the 
speech  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves.  Having  been 
"  founded  upon  reason,"  which  would  seem  to  be  the 
poorest  of  suppoi-ts  in  orthography,  it  is  now  mere 
matter  of  literary  curiosit}^  of  little  or  no  interest  to 
the  general  reader.  But  it  is  worth  our  while  to 
look  at  the  spelling  which  he  speaks  of  so  contumeli- 
ously,  calling  it  elswhere,  just  as  our  phonetic  re- 
formers of  to-day  do,  "  disorder  and  confusion."  In 
the  passages  quoted  above,  his  spelling  is  exactly  fol- 
lowed ;  and  how  much  does  the  disorder  and  confusion 
of  more  than  three  hundred  years  ago  differ  from  that 
to-day  ?  Hardly  at  all.  There  is  no  essential  differ- 
ence between  the  spelling  of  this  John  Hart  who 
wrote  in  1569  and  that  of  a  John  Hart  who  might 
write  or  has  written  in  1879.  Throughout  those  two 
passages  which  I  have  quoted  for  their  substance,  and 
which  fairly  represent  the  author's  spelling,  there  are 
only  five  words  which  differ  from  our  present  stand- 
ard ;  and  they  differ  not  essentially  in  the  radical 
sounds  and  letters,  but  merely  by  an  e  more  or  less, 
y  for  ^,  or  two  consonants  instead  of  one.  No  person 
who  can  read  at  all  would  have  any  more  difficulty 
in  reading  John  Hart's  book,  which  was  printed  three 
hundred  years  ago,  than  he  would  if  it  had  been 
written  and  published  three  hundred  years  later ;  nor 
is  there  a  reason  graver  than  conformity  to  fashion 
wliy  any  person  should  not  now  spell  just  as  he  did. 
What  great  matter  is  it  whether  we  write  learn  or 
learne^  we  or  wee  ?  Unifoumity  is  indeed  desira'^le, 
although  it  is  not  essent?a.,  and  our  friends  the  print- 
ers and  proof-readers  will  insure  it  if  we  print  our 
11 


162  E VERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

writing.  If  we  do  not  print  it,  the  consequences  of 
Buch  small  and  unessential  variation  as  there  is  be- 
tween Hart's  spelling  and  ours  are  not  worth  five 
minutes'  thought  by  any  reasonable  creature.  The 
great  faults  of  our  every-day  English  are  in  much 
graver  matters  than  this  is ;  and  there  are  people  in 
a  constant  twitter  of  apprehension  about  their  spell- 
ing and  their  "grammar"  who  might  well  let  those 
go  uncared  for,  while  they  give  their  attention  to 
speaking  and  writing  sense  in  words  that  express 
their  meaning. 

The  sameness  of  Hart's  spelling  with  our  own  in  all 
essential  points,  and  the  rare  and  very  slight  differences 
in  the  unessential,  have  a  lesson  for  those  who  will 
learn  it.  Here  was  a  man  who  endeavored  to  upturn 
the  written  English  language,  and  who  thought  that  he 
would  do  so  ;  and  yet,  after  three  hundred  years  of 
continuous  effort  like  his,  our  orthography  —  if  orthog- 
raphy it  must  be  called  —  is  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses just  what  he  found  it.  As  the  centuries  have 
slowly  gone  by,  the  writers  of  English  have  dropped 
a  letter  here  and  there  (very  rarely  one  which  had 
any  etymological  or  phonetic  value)  ;  but  our  written 
language  has  remained  essentially  the  same  that  it 
was  when  he  undertook  its  reformation. 

A  hundred  years  passed  by,  not  unvexed  by  pho- 
netic reformers,  when  the  most  pi-etentious  of  them  all 
appeared.  This  was  John  Wilkins,  Dean  of  Ripon,^ 
who  published,  in  1668,  "  An  Essay  toward  a  Real 
Character  and  a  Philosophical  Language."  His  "  es- 
say," unlike  the  essays  of  Bacon,  who  first  used  the 
word  in  this  sense,  made  a  large  folio.  Its  title  ia 
significant,   because   it  contains  a  strong   expression 

1  Afterwards  Bishop  of  Cliester. 


SPELLING  REFORMERS  OF  THE  PAST.      1G3 

Df  the  misleading  fancy  which  has  beguiled  all  re- 
formers of  this  class.  He  sought  a  "  real  character  ' 
and  a  "  philosophical "  hmguage.  The  notion  which 
takes  possession  of  these  men  is  that  there  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  and  that  there  may  be,  some  real  connection 
between  spoken  words  and  the  signs  used  to  express 
them,  and  that  language  may  be  made  philosophical, 
—  a  kind  of  scientific  structure.  Now,  there  is  no 
Buch  real  connection,  nor  has  there  ever  been  any 
such  structure,  except  perhaps  the  Sanskrit  language. 
Written  language  is  composed  of  arbitrary  and  con- 
ventional signs;  and  hieroglyphics,  or  numerical  fig- 
ures, or  stenographic  lines  and  dots,  are  no  less  writ- 
ten language  than  letters.  A  painted  crow  and  a  K 
signifies  "  croquet  "  just  as  well  as  seven  letters  do, 
besides  being  so  exquisitely  funny ;  and  if  we  could 
have  one  sign  for  each  syllable  that  we  utter,  instead 
of  being  obliged  to  use  from  two  to  three  or  four, 
the  device  would  answer  our  purposes.  Moreover, 
language,  written  or  spoken,  is  not  philosophical  or 
A  science;  although  there  is  a  science  of  language, 
which  is  a  very  different  matter.  It  is  only  an  art,  — 
the  first  and  homeliest  of  all  arts,  —  a  mere  device 
for  communication  between  man  and  man  ;  and  its 
only  object  is  to  make  that  communication  as  clear 
and  sure  as  possible. 

Dean  Wilkins  invented  a  phonetic  alphabet,  using 
bout  four  hundred  and  fifty  charactei'S  to  express 
various  shades  of  sound.  He  also  anticipated  one  of 
the  most  prominent  of  tlie  phonologists  of  our  day, 
Bell,  in  his  lately  published  "  Visible  Speech,"  by 
showing  the  mode  of  formation  of  the  sounds  of  the 
principal  letters.  He  engraved  diagrams  of  about 
;hirty-five  heads  wiih  one  jaw  and  a  side  of  the  neck 


164  EVERT-DAY  ENGLISH. 

cut  away,  to  show  the  action  of  tongue,  palate,  and 
glottis.  He  had  also  the  faith  in  his  system  which  is 
characteristic  of  reformers,  and  moreover  that  con- 
tempt for  others  which  is  common  to  most  of  them. 
He  says :  — 

"  As  for  those  other  new  alphabets  that  are  prepared  by 
Sir  Thomas  Smith  [mentioned  above],  Bullokar,  and  Alex- 
ander Gill,  they  do  none  of  them  give  a  just  imitation  of 
the  simple  elements  of  speech ;  but,  what  by  the  mixture  of 
long  and  short  words,  which  do  not  differ  specifically,  to- 
gether with  the  insertion  of  double  letters,  they  do  too  much 
increase  the  number  of  them.  Besides  that,  some  other 
letters  are  left  out  and  omitted," 

Thus  it  ever  is  :  my  panacea  is  the  great  remedy  , 
as  for  "  those  others,"  they  are  of  no  value.  Ob- 
serve, by  the  way,  that  in  the  hundred  years  that 
passed  between  Hart  and  Williins  written  English  be- 
came just  what  it  is  at  present.  The  passage  quoted 
from  Wilkins,  althougli  it  was  written  and  printed 
more  than  two  centuries  ago,  would  pass  muster  at 
a  spelling  bee  to-day.  Observe  also  at  the  end  the 
words  "  left  out  and  omitted."  The  first  two  and  the 
last  have  exactly  the  same  meaning  ;  and  his  word 
'  and  "  is  superfluous  or  misleading.  This  union  of 
iinglish  words  and  Romance  words  to  express  one 
thought  is  common  in  books  written  two  hundred  or 
three  hundred  years  ago.  The  Common  Prayer  Book 
is  full  of  examples  of  it.^ 

1  The  union  was  not  always  that  of  an  Enjijlish  word  with  one  of  Latin 
Drigin,  but  was  Foinetimes,  although  rarely,  that  of  an  uncommon  with  a 
common  word.  Of  this  absurd  practice,  the  most  marked  instance  that  I 
recall  is  in  the  following  couplet  from  George  Marshall's  Coinpendiout 
Treatise  in  Metre,  declaring  the  First  Originall  of  Sacrifice,  A.  d.  1554 :  — 
"  That  Peter  and  ye  Apostles  so  sore  was  affrayd, 
That  in  spelunkes  and  caves  there  thei  masse  said." 

.'hau  is,  that  in  caves  and  caves,  etc  ;  for  ipelunc  is  merely  an  Euglisk 
(orm  of  tlip  Latin  word  for  cave. 


SPELLING    RKFORMERS    OF   THE   PAST.  165 

I  give  below  the  Lord's  Prayer  as  it  is  printed  by- 
Dean  Wilkins,  after  a  phonetic  fashion  which  shows 
that  Mr.  Ellis's  "  glossic,"i  or  a  mode  of  spelling 
which  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  same,  is  more 
than  two  hundred  years  old.  In  this  y  is  used  to 
express  that  obscure  sound  in  English  which  is  heard 
in  ^<s,  and  which  begins  so  many  diphthongal  sounds, 
as  ah-oor,  our,  thah-ee,  thy.  I  am  obliged  to  use  an 
itidlc  ou  in  the  place  of  an  obsolete  Greek  character, 
a  contraction  of  omicron  and  upsilon,  which  Wilkins 
uses  for  the  sound  oo.    I  has  our  sound  of  ee. 

"  Your  ftidher  howitsh  art  in  heven  halloed  bi  dhyi  nam, 
dhyi  cingdym  cym,  dhyi  o«ilI  bi  dyn,  iu  erth  az  it  iz  in 
heven  ;  giv  ys  dhis  dai  jouv  daili  bred,  aud  fargiv  ys  jour 
trespassez  as  ou\\  fargiv  dhem  dhat  trespas  against  ys,  ancl 
led  ys  nat  into^«  temptaisiaB,  byt  deliver  ys  from  ivil,  far 
dhyin  iz  dhe  cingdym,  dhi  pyouer  aud  dhi  glari,  far  ever 
aud  ever.     Amen." 

Notwithstanding  Dean  Wilkins's  great  and  ingen- 
ious labor  and  equal  self-confidence,  his  book  has  gone 
with  its  predecessors  and  most  of  its  successors  into 
the  literary  dust  bin  ;  and  we  need  trouble  ourselvea 
no  further  with  him  and  not  at  all  with  the  otbe? 
upelling  reformers  of  past  days. 

1  See  Chapter  Xm. 


CHAPTER  XL 

MODERN   ORTHOGRAPHY  AND  ITS  REFORMATION. 

Three  quarters  of  a  century  ago,  and  more,  John 
Walker  thought  that  he  had  settled  the  principles  of 
English  pronunciation.  His  pronouncing  dictionary 
was  a  valuable  work,  and  had  a  beneficial  influence 
upon  our  language ;  but  he  did  not  settle  the  prin- 
ciples of  English  pronunciation,  for  the  very  good 
reason  that  it  had  no  principles  to  be  settled.  His 
introductory  treatise,  in  which  he  professed  to  have 
accomplished  what  no  doubt  seemed  to  him  a  very 
important  purpose,  is  after  all  (like  so  much  other  so- 
called  philology)  a  mere  classification  of  usage,  —  the 
usage  of  his  time,  —  with  an  attempt  to  reconcile  some 
discrepancies,  and  to  enforce  a  few  analogies.  His 
attempts,  and  those  of  other  orthoepists,  to  lay  down 
rules  are  grounded  upon  the  false  assumption  that 
language  is  a  combination  of  signs,  and  that  the  tones 
and  articulations  of  those  who  speak  it  are,  or  should 
be,  determined  by  the  signs  used  by  those  who  write 
it.  On  the  contrary,  language  is  a  combination  o. 
sounds  ;  and  the  proper  function  of  the  signs  of  writ* 
ten  language  is  not  to  express,  but  rather  to  call  to 
mind,  those  combinations,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  for 
signs  to  suggest  sounds. 

This  was  the  original  function  of  letters,  and  it 
itill  is  their  legitimate  function;  but  the  effect  of  the 
diffusion  of  books  and  of  the  ability  to  read  them 
has  been  to  make  the  question  practically,  for  many 


MODERN    ORTHOGRArilY    AND    ITS   REFORMATION.      167 

people,  not  how  certain  sounds  shall  be  expressed, 
but  how  certain  combinations  of  letters  shall  be  pro- 
nounced. 

Take,  for  example,  the  broad  sound  of  a  as  in  father. 
This  may  be  regarded  as  the  primitive  human  utter 
ance  ;  and  it  was  in  very  remote  times  the  most  fre- 
quently heard  sound  in  human  speech.  We  may  be 
as  sure  as  we  can  be  of  anything  in  regard  to  the 
sounds  of  speech  in  the  past  that  the  sign  A,  when  it 
was  first  used,  represented  that  sound  only.  These 
assertions  seem  somewhat  over-positive.  But  all  in- 
dications point  so  clearly  to  these  initial  facts  of  speech 
and  of  writing  that  there  can  be  little  risk  in  taking 
them  as  established,  with  the  modification  —  what- 
ever it  may  be —  of  the  other  fact,  that  written  lan- 
guage followed  spoken  language  at  a  distance  in  time 
now  quite  incalculable. 

With  the  progress  of  ages,  however,  the  words  into 
the  composition  of  which  the  sound  indicated  by  this 
letter  A  had  entered  were  changed  in  their  pronunci- 
ation, so  that  (for  example,  merely)  the  broad  ah 
sound  passed  into  the  vowel  sounds  of  all,  last,  and 
hat.  But  although  the  sound  was  varied,  the  form 
)f  the  letter  remained  unchanged ;  and  thus  it  has 
^ome  to  be  said  that  A  has  such  and  such  different 
tounds.  This  statement,  however  useful  it  may  be 
in  practical  spelling  and  pronouncing,  is  not  strictly 
true.  For,  as  the  fact  has  come  to  be,  it  is  not  that 
this  letter  and  others  have  various  sounds,  but  that 
"ertain  combinations  of  letters  have  for  a  period  more 
lir  less  long  represented  certain  things  or  thoughts, 
the  spoken  names  of  which  have  varied  in  their  pro- 
nunciation. 

There  are  very  few  hitters,  evpu  itmong  the  conso- 
nants, which    absolutely  repi-csent  a  certain   sound 


168  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

and  as  to  some  words  the  assertion  that  the  letters 
ftre  pronounced  thus  and  so  cannot  be  made  with- 
out manifest  absurdity.  For  example,  no  fusion  oi 
any  sounds  pertaining  to  g  and  h  will  result  in  /; 
and  the  same  may  be  said  of  p  and  h;  nor  is  the 
combined  sound  of  t  and  h  that  of  6.  And  yet  in 
rough  and  laughter  the  written  gh  corresponds  to  the 
spoken  y,  as  ph  does  in  p)hial  and  in  photograph  ;  and 
in  thane,  thick,  thin,  th  corresponds  to  the  spoken 
Saxon  5  and  the  Greek  0.  Yet  no  man  can  utter  a 
g  and  an  h  so  as  to  produce  the  sound  of/.  It  is  im- 
possible ;  and  so  it  is  as  to  ph  and  /,  and  th  and  6, 
These  marked  examples  illustrate  the  very  impor- 
tant fact  that  written  language  has  long  ceased  to 
be  merely  an  exact  indication  of  sound,  if  indeed  it 
ever  were  so  after  the  days  of  the  first  generation  of 
writing-men.  It  may  with  truth  be  urged  that  the 
examples  are  extreme,  and  that  they  hold  only  in 
English.  But  if  extreme,  they  are  characteristic ; 
and  although  they  are  English  they  are  not  without 
parallels  in  most  other  living  tongues  which  have 
been  written  for  some  centuries.-^ 

The  one  great  misleading  assumption,  as  it  appeara 
to  me,  in  the  general  consideration  of  this  department 
jf  language  is  that  our  speech  is  the  conscious  utter- 
ance of  a  combination  of  certain  specific  sounds  for 
vvhich  we  have  distinctly  corresponding  letters.  That 
it  is  not  so  will  be  manifest,  if  we  suppose  that  to- 
night all  books  and  writings,  and  all  memor}^  oi 
them,  should  perish.  Language  would  still  exist  in 
perfection.  To-morrow  we  should  be  speaking  ex- 
actly as  we  do  to-da3\  There  would  not  be  a  word 
a  sound,  an  inflection  lost  from  the  language;  onlj 

1  rh  and  th  are  earlj'  Greek  combinations  for  which  <p  and  9  were  sab 
Mituted. 


MODERN  ORTHOGRAPHY  AND  ITS  REFORMATION.   169 

certain  of  us  would  not  be  consulting  dictionaries, 
and  vexing  our  souls  and  the  souls  of  other  men  who 
never  look  at  dictionaries,  to  know  what  is  the  proper 
pronunciation  of  exquisite.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
speech  and  the  memory  of  it  were  lost,  all  the  books 
and  all  the  writings  in  the  world  would  cease  to 
be  books  and  writings,  and  become  merely  soiled 
paper,  fit  only  to  kindle  fires  withal ;  and  man  would 
lapse  into  a  savagery  below  that  of  the  African  Bush- 
man, probably  even  into  that  of  his  forefather,  — 
in  the  Genesis  according  to  Darwin,  —  an  ape,  and 
be  unable  to  make  a  fire  of  his  books  even  to  keep 
his  unclothed  body  warm.  Truths  these  sufficiently 
obvious,  one  would  think ;  and  yet  they  are  truths 
the  significance  of  which  is  continually  disregarded. 
The  inversion  of  the  proper  order  of  things  in  this 
matter  is  illustrated  by  Dr.  Johnson's  relation  of  his 
experience  in  regard  to  the  word  great,  which  Lord 
Chesterfield  told  him  should  be  pronounced  so  as  to 
rhyme  with  state  ;  but  Sir  Charles  Young  said  that 
it  should  be  pronounced  so  as  to  rhyme  with  seat, 
and  that  none  but  an  Irishman  would  pronounce  it 
grate.  Now,  both  those  accomplished  men  (the  one 
the  first  speaker  in  the  Lords,  the  other  in  the  Com- 
mons) wrote  that  word  in  the  same  way ;  but  does  it 
follow  that  the  difference  in  their  pronunciation  of  it 
was  caused  by  one  of  them  pronouncing  the  combina- 
tion ea  with  the  vowel  sound  of  state,  and  the  other's 
^  renouncing  it  with  that  of  meet  f  How  was  it  then 
with  seat,  to  which  we  know  by  implication  they 
Voth  gave  the  latter  sound  ?  And  yet  there  is  not 
a  fact  in  the  histoiy  of  language  oetter  established 
than  that  at  the  time  of  the  grandfathers  of  these 
jrentlemen  seat  was  generally  proi  nunced  sate,  and 


170  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

that  Lord  Chesterfield's  pronunciation  of  great  was 
no  innovation,  but  merely  a  perpetuation  of  the  old 
sound,  while  Sir  Charles  Young's  greet  was  a  new 
fasliion,  which  failed  of  that  general  and  lasting  adop- 
tion that  prevailed  as  to  a  similar  change  in  the  pro- 
nunciation of  seat.  The  facts  of  the  case  were  that 
both  these  men  spoke  their  language  with  the  sounds 
■which  they  liked  to  give  it,  or  which  they  adopted 
unconsciously  from  those  around  them,  and  that  they 
would  have  so  spoken  it  whether  it  had  been  written 
or  not ;  ^  that  the  sounds  of  the  words  that  expressed 
respectively  largeness  and  a  place  upon  which  to  sit 
were  in  process  of  change,  the  change  prevailing  in 
regard  to  one,  but  failing  in  regard  to  the  other ; 
while  the  written  chai-acters  which  expressed  those 
things  remained  the  same  as  they  had  been  for  gen- 
erations, unmodified  by  any  change  in  the  sounds 
which  expressed  those  things  in  speech. 

A  like  change  took  place  in  some  words  and  failed 
to  take  place  in  others  in  the  pronunciation,  so  to 
speak,  of  gli.  We  write  laughter,  and  speak  lahfter  ; 
we  write  daughter,  and  speak  dawter.  But  the  words 
were  once  pronounced  alike ;  and  the  sound  corre- 
sponding to  gh  was  at  first  guttural  in  both.  Many 
examples  in  point  might  be  produced. 

The  fact  that  the  gh  both  in  laughter  and  in 
daughter  once  represented  a  guttural  sound,  of  which 
there  still  lingers  a  remnant  in  the  pronunciation  of 
raught  by  some  persons,  only  still  further  illustrates 
the  perpetuation  of  the  visible  sign,  unmodified  by 
any  change  in  the  sound  which  it  once  represented, 
or  by  that  of  which  in  contemporary  speech  it  is  pro- 

1  I  pass  over  here  the  influence  of  written  lanj^uage  on  spoken,  —  \M 
direct,  indeterminable,  but  appreciable. 


MODERN  ORTHOGRAPHY  AND  ITS  REFORMATION.   171 

vocative.  And  if  it  be  true,  as  that  profound  stu- 
dent of  plionology,  Mr.  Alexander  Ellis,  has  said, 
that  changes  in  pronunciation  are  not  gradual,  but 
sudden  (of  which,  conscious  although  I  am  of  the 
deference  due  from  me  to  his  decisions,  I  am  not 
quite  convinced),  tliis  still  further  illustrates  both 
the  absence  of  such  principles  of  pronunciation  as 
Walker  thought  that  he  had  laid  down,  and  the 
error  of  the  assumption  that  the  written  signs  of  lan- 
guage (that  is,  letters)  have,  so  to  speak,  certain  pho- 
nological rights  and  powers,  and  that  they  "  ought " 
to  be  pronounced  thus  and  so.  To  claim  principles 
for  that  which  changes  suddenly  and  with  no  other 
reason  than  preference,  and  to  insist  upon  rights  and 
powers  which  can  be  taken  away  at  a  breath  and 
upon  caprice,  is  to  disregard  the  plain  meaning  of  the 
words  we  use.  The  truth  is  that  there  is  nothing: 
more  subject  to  the  absolute,  irresponsible  will  of 
man,  nothing  more  the  servant  of  his  will,  his  ne- 
cessity, or  his  whim,  than  the  sound  with  which  he 
utters  his  words.  The  attempt  to  control  it  by  the 
tyranny  of  visible  signs  has  failed,  and,  although 
they  do  somewhat  modify  that  utterance,  must  fail 
always. 

If  we  cannot  conform  speech  to  writing,  shall  we 
herefore  conform  writing  to  speech  ? 

That  writing  should  conform  to  speech  is  the  orig- 
inal and  the  normal  relation  of  the  two  forms  of 
language.  If  letters  were  to  be  invented  to-day,  we 
should  have  a  sign  for  every  sound,  we  should  limit 
each  sign  to  the  expression  of  one  sound,  and  we 
should  thus  spell  our  written  words  exactly  as  they 
are  spoken. 

We  should  do  it  for  just  one   day ;    and  the  we 


172  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

would  be  just  those  few  persons,  and  no  more,  who 
would  be  able  to  agree  upon  the  number  and  the  nat- 
ure of  the  sounds  in  the  language,  and  upon  the 
signs  by  which  they  should  be  represented. 

This  conclusion  is  not  favorable  to  a  reform  in  Eng- 
lish orthography,  —  a  reform  to  which  the  majority 
of  the  eminent  philologists  of  both  the  English-speak- 
ing countries  have  given  their  adhesion.  With  all 
this  preponderance  of  learning  and  ability  on  one  side, 
I  shall  venture  to  present  on  the  other  some  views 
which  may  be  worthy  of  consideration  by  my  readers. 

The  sudden  and  deliberate  re-forming  of  English 
spelling  seems  to  me  to  be  open  to  three  objections  : 
it  is  unnecessary ;  it  is  undesirable  ;  it  is  impossible. 
These  objections,  as  I  have  previously  said,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  what  is  known  as  the  conservative 
view  of  this  question.  If  English  spelling  be,  as  it 
has  been  called,  chaotic,  I  at  least,  for  one,  have  no 
sympathy  with  the  gentleman  whose  voice  was  heard, 
on  a  certain  occasion,  coming  out  of  the  darkness  that 
was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep,  crying,  "  3Ion  Dieu  ! 
conservons  le  chaos  !  "  If  a  radical  reform  in  the  spell- 
ing of  the  English  language  is  necessary,  desirable, 
and  possible,  let  us  have  it  by  all  means,  and  Avith 
what  speed  we  may.  But  they  who  propose  such  a 
tremendous  literary  uprooting  of  that  which  is  the 
gradual  growth  of  centuries,  and  which  in  fact  is  the 
visible  body  of  English  literature,  have  upon  their 
hands,  as  the  first  part  of  their  task,  to  show  the  world 
its  necessity,  or  at  least  its  desirability,  and  some  rea- 
son for  believing  it  possible. 

That  it  is  not  necessary  seems  manifest,  for  the 
reason  that  the  present  system,  or  rather  fashion,  — 
!or  that  which  has  neither  law  nor  consistency  cannol 


MODERN   ORTHOGRAPHY   AND   ITS   REFORMATION.      173 

be  called  a  system,  —  is  perfectly  practicable,  and  ia 
daily  used  with  unconscious  facility  and  a  reasonable 
approach  to  accuracy  by  millions  of  English-speaking 
peo])le.  If  the  present  English  orthography  had  been 
found  to  be  a  hindrance  to  the  production  of  a  good 
literature,  or  a  hindrance  to  its  appreciation,  or  a  hin- 
drance to  the  communication  of  thoughts  and  fact3 
and  wishes  by  writing,  there  would  be  some  sem- 
blance of  a  reasonable  plea  for  the  necessity  of  such 
a  reform.  But  English  orthography,  as  it  has  ex- 
isted for  nearly  three  centuries,  modified  slightly  from 
generation  to  generation  by  the  people  who  have  used 
it,  is  the  outward  form  of  a  literature  inferior  to  that 
of  no  other  people,  and  superior  to  that  of  most  others 
in  quantity  no  less  than  in  quality ;  and  as  to  letter- 
writing,  there  are  many  of  us,  I  am  sure,  who  would 
much  more  gladly  hear  of  some  means  of  diminish- 
ing than  of  any  contrivance  for  increasing  its  facility 
and  its  frequency. 

As  to  the  difficulties  of  English  spelling,  they  do 
not  appear  in  any  form  which  entitles  them  to  much 
consideration.  Reiterating  what  I  have  said  before, 
I  declare  that  after  a  somewhat  close  observation  in 
this  respect  for  no  little  time  past  I  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  saying  that  these  difficulties  are  very  much  ex- 
aggerated. I  receive,  and  for  some  years  have  re- 
ceived daily,  many  letters  written  by  representatives 
of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men ;  and  I  can  safely 
Bay  that  an  error  in  spelling  is  the  very  rarest  that  I 
meet  with.  Indeed,  I  might  almost  say  that  an  error 
of  this  kind  never  occurs  in  any  manuscript  that  comes 
under  my  observation.  Mistakes  of  all  other  sorts 
are  common,  chiefly  in  the  construction  of  sentences  j 
those  in  the  meaning  of  words  are  only  less  frequent , 


174  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

but  in  general  the  spelling  may  be  said  to  be  always 
correct.  A  change  in  spelling  seems  to  be  necessary 
to  give  neither  writers  nor  readers  a  complete  and 
easy  command  of  the  English  language,  spoken  or 
written. 

What  is  not  necessary  may,  however,  be  desirable. 
The  desirability  of  a  reform  of  English  spelling  is 
urged  on  three  grounds :  it  would  save  much  time  now 
lost  in  writing  silent  letters,  and  much  money  now  lost 
in  printing  tliem;  it  would  make  pronunciation  cer- 
tain ;  it  would  diminish  very  greatly  the  time  spent  in 
learning  to  write  the  language. 

An  appeal  to  the  pocket  is  alwaj^s  an  effective 
one,  and  is  particularly  so  in  these  days  of  political 
economy's  dismal  rule.  When,  therefore,  we  are  told 
that  "■  bad  spelling  costs  the  country  $15,000,000  a 
year,"  and  that  the  cost  of  printing  silent  letters  "  is 
to  be  counted  by  millions  for  each  generation,"  it  ha& 
a  very  formidable  sound,  and  it  seems  as  if  there 
must  be  a  committee  appointed  of  correspondingly 
formidable  functions,  the  results  of  whose  labors  shall 
take  form  in  a  resolution  that  henceforth  the  Eng- 
L'sh  language  shall  be  spelled  in  a  more  economical 
manner.  For  doubtless  nothing  is  beyond  the  reach 
of  resolutions,  not  even  the  formation  of  a  written 
language  ;  and  as  it  was  once  declared  by  a  very  great 
political  economist  that  the  three-hooped  pot  should 
have  ten  hoops,  so  now  it  shall  be  proclaimed,  on  the 
contrary,  that  the  six-lettered  Avord  shall  have  two 
letters,  and  that  excess  shall  hereafter  be  written  xs. 

I  shall  doubtless  be  accused  of  treating  a  serious 
subject  with  levity  ;  and  I  confess  that  I  cannot  be 
very  grave  over  these  assertions  as  to  the  immense 
sums  that  bad  spelling  and  silent  letters  cost  yearly 


MODERN  ORTHOGRAPHY  AND  ITS  REFORMATION.   175 

It  is  because  I  have  considered  the  subject  seriously 
that  I  am  disposed  to  laugh  at  the  charge  of  $15,000,- 
000  a  year  to  "  unscientific  "  spelling.  No  proofs  of 
such  an  expenditure  on  that  account  are  produced  ; 
and  therefore  I  can  only  say  that  I  am  very  sure  that 
the  assertion  is  wildly  extravagant,  or  that  it  must 
mean  something  very  different  from  the  plain  purport 
of  its  words  and  figures.  But  suppose  it  to  be  true ; 
and  suppose  that  those  other  millions,  untold,  which 
the  printing  of  silent  letters  costs  amount  to  another 
fifteen.  That  would  make  the  cost  of  the  present  style 
of  spelling  just  $30,000,000  yearly.  Now,  even  if  all 
this  were  saved  by  the  simple  and  easy  means  of  a 
thorough  reformation  of  the  spelling  of  the  English 
language,  there  would  not  be  enough  of  it  to  give  one 
dollar  a  year  each  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  alone.  The  benefit  ought  surely  to  be  very 
great  indeed  which  disturbs  the  literature  of  a  whole 
race  and  deranges  its  means  of  daily  communication 
without  saving  a  dollar  each  for  only  one  branch  of 
that  race  in  a  year. 

It  might  be  shown,  on  the  contrary,  and  I  think 
that  I  shall  show,  that  the  cost  of  the  reform  would 
be  very  much  more  than  fifteen  millions  of  dollars 
yearly  for  a  very  considerable  time.  For  in  the  first 
place  all  the  books,  or  at  least  all  the  valuable  books, 
that  have  been  printed  for  the  last  three  hundred 
years  must  needs  be  reprinted,  or  to  the  next  genera- 
tion they  would  be  as  unreadable  as  if  they  were  writ- 
ten in  Anglo-Saxon,  or  at  least  as  if  they  were  put 
into  the  Old  Enghsh  of  that  first  of  our  phonogra* 
phers,  the  author  of  the  "  Ormulum,"  who  did  his 
work  six  hundred  years  ago.^  This  would  cost  very 
1  See  Chapter  X. 


176  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

many  millions  of  dollars.  Then  in  the  course  of  a 
single  generation  the  stock  of  English  books  now  ex- 
isting all  over  the  world  in  private  and  in  public  li- 
braries would  become  worthless,  except  a  very  few  to 
preserve  as  curiosities,  and  for  consultation  by  schol- 
ars, involving  a  loss  of  many  more  millions  of  dol- 
lars. All  the  stereotype  plates  now  in  the  hands  of 
publishers  would  become  onl}'^  so  much  metal  to  be 
melted  down  ;  and  this  would  involve  the  loss  of  many 
millions  more.  Imagine  besides  the  upturning  that 
such  a  reform  would  cause  in  the  printing-offices  of 
the  whole  English-speaking  people  ;  the  sinking  of 
capital  already  invested  ;  the  necessary  new  expenses 
involved  ;  and  the  relearning  of  their  trade  by  the 
printers,  whose  art  is  the  growth  of  centuries !  I 
think  that  the  economical  argument  in  favor  of  a 
change  in  English  spelling  other  than  that  which  has 
been  going  on  gradually  from  the  time  of  Chaucer 
and  Wyclitl'e,  those  fathers  of  English  literature,  may 
be  dismissed  without  further  consideration.  To  use 
a  common  and  very  expressive  phrase,  such  a  change 
would  cost  very  much  more  than  it  would  come  to. 

A  reform  in  our  spelling  might  nevertheless  be  de- 
sirable, notwithstanding  the  ruinous  expense  that  it 
;i70uld  involve.  Of  the  reasons  for  which  the  reform 
IS  asked,  the  one  most  strongly  urged  is  the  time  that 
it  takes  to  learn  to  spell  English  correctly  according 
to  the  prevailing  and  long-established  fashion.  This 
time  is  said  to  be  five  years.  I  very  much  doubt  the 
truth  of  this  assertion,  if  it  is  taken  as  meaning  what 
it  seems  and  is  apparently  intended  to  mean.  If  it 
means  that  an  adult  English-speaking  person  of  av- 
erage intelligence  cannot  learn  to  spell  his  mother 
tongue  so  as  to  communicate  his  thoughts  correctly 


MODERN   ORTHOGRAPHY    AND   ITS   REFORMATION.      ITT 

by  writing  in  less  than  five  years  of  constant  study, 
it  is  so  absurdly  untrue  that  it  need  not  be  regarded. 
Such  a  person  can  learn  to  spell  a  foreign  language, 
French,  for  instance,  well  enough  for  all  practical 
purposes,  in  the  course  of  a  year's  application  ;  and 
French  spelling  is  quite  as  difficult  as  English  is. 
Even  of  French  the  spelling  comes  much  more  easily 
than  the  grammar,  the  construction,  the  idioms,  the 
forms  of  thought ;  much  more  easily  than  the  pronun- 
ciation, and  above  all  the  inflections  of  voice  neces- 
sary to  really  good  French  speaking.  Think  of  the 
genders  and  the  verbs !  and  think  of  the  exceptions  ! 
Many  an  English  student  of  French,  many  a  French 
student  of  English,  can  spell  any  word  in  his  acquired 
vocabulary  of  either  of  those  languages,  who  could  not 
write  half  a  page  or  speak  five  minutes  without  fla- 
grant violation  of  grammar  and  of  idiom. 

This,  however,  is  probably  not  the  meaning  of  the 
assertion  in  question.  What  is  meant  is  that  five 
years  of  a  child's  life  pass  from  the  time  when  he  be- 
gins to  learn  to  spell  until  he  can  be  said  to  spell  well. 
This  is  true  enough,  probably,  in  the  majority  of  in- 
stances ;  and  some  do  not  learn  to  spell  well  in  ten 
years  ;  a  few,  never.  But  as  I  have  remarked  before, 
neither  do  they  all  learn  other  things  well  in  the 
i5ame  time,  —  proper  pronunciation,  legible  writing, 
the  simple  rules  of  arithmetic,  geography,  history 
even  in  outline,  and  so  forth.  With  what  reason  is 
it  expected  that  spelling  should  be  learned  more 
quickly  than  these  ?  If  a  child  learns  to  spell  tolera- 
bly between  the  ages  of  five  and  ten  years,  he  does 
well.  For  during  that  time  he  gives  but  about  an 
hour  a  day  to  this  task  for  five  days  of  the  week ;  and 
meantime  he  is  learning  other  things ;  and  his  very 

12 


178  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

spelling  comes  to  him  quite  as  much  by  unconscious 
observation  of  what  he  reads  as  by  direct  study. 
Moreover,  at  this  period  his  attention  is  largely  given, 
or  should  be  so  given,  to  those  things  which  build  up 
in  him  a  sound  and  healthy  physical  and  moral  nat- 
ure. To  say  that  even  a  child  spends  five  years  in 
learning  to  spell  conveys  a  very  misleading  notion  of 
the  real  facts  of  the  case.  And  if  a  child  between  the 
years  of  five  and  ten,  in  addition  to  all  the  rest  that 
he  should  and  generally  does  learn  in  that  time,  learns 
to  spell  tolerably  w^ell,  he  makes  as  good  a  use  of  hia 
study-time  in  those  childish  years  as  could  be  asked 
for  him. 

The  only  other  reason  of  seeming  importance  for  a 
reform  in  English  spelling  is  that  we  should  thereby 
know  more  certainly  how  words  should  be,  or  how 
they  are,  pronounced.  It  is  insisted  that  if  each  let- 
ter represented  only  one  sound  we  should  be  rid  of 
a  world  of  uncertainty  and  ambiguity  in  language. 
"  Men  are  asking,"  Dr.  Trumbull  tells  us,  "  whether 
there  is  not,  after  all,  as  much  absurdity  in  represent- 
ing half  a  dozen  different  and  dissimilar  sounds  by 
one  and  the  same  combination  of  letters  —  the  termi- 
nation ough,  for  instance  —  as  in  the  wildest  eccen- 
tricities of  phonography."  That  unhappy  little  ter- 
mination oiigh,  which  corresponds  to  other  sounds 
than /in  only  ten  words  in  the  language,  — only  ten,^ 
—  how  has  it  served  foreigners  for  a  jest,  and  been 
worked  over  by  phonetic  reformers  for  an  argument  I 
But  this  reason  for  a  reform  of  spelling  toward  pho- 
nography seems  at  once  to  reverse  the  relations   of 

1  Bough,  dough,  hiccough,  hough,  slough,  though,  plough,  furlough 
Chrough,  borough;  and  of  these  oue,  hiccough,  has  ;roperly  the/* sound 
fctcctf/'. 


MODERN    ORTHOGRAPHY    AND    ITS   REFORMATION.       179 

Fpoken  and  written  language.  For,  apart  from  the 
consideration  that  speech,  and  not  writing,  is  language, 
pronunciation  is,  for  many  centuries  has  been,  and  — 
may  we  not  therefore  safely  assume  ?  —  always  will 
be  independent  of  spelling. 

That  this  is  true  will,  I  think,  appear  from  what  I 
shall  hereafter  present  in  detail  upon  this  part  of  my 
subject ;  but  it  may  be  briefly  illustrated  here.  In- 
deed, it  has  been  illustrated  in  what  is  said  in  the 
foregoing  pages  as  to  the  pronunciation  of  great.  The 
word  either  is  another  example  in  point.  What  we 
call  the  Irish  pronunciation  of  it  is  ayther  ;  the  gen- 
eral English  pronunciation  is  eether  ;  but  many  Eng- 
lish people  of  the  best  education  and  social  culture 
pronounce  it  i-ther.  The  Irish  pronunciation  is  the 
oldest  and  the  most  analogically  correct.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Bunyan 
and  Dryden  and  Addison  and  Pope  said  ayther. 
Dr.  Johnson  did,  if  we  may  trust  the  anecdote  told  of 
him,  that  when  asked  whether  he  said  eether  or  i-ther., 
he  answered,  "  Nayther."  The  story  at  least  shows 
us  when  i-ther  was  coming  in.  But  with  all  these 
marked  variations  in  the  spoken  word,  the  written 
word  remained  just  the  same;  just  as  Chesterfield 
and  Young  both  wrote  great,  while  one  spoke  grate 
and  the  other  greet. 

The  great  difiiculty,  however,  in  establishing  con- 
formity of  sign  to  sound  is,  in  my  judgment,  the  un- 
certainty that  always  must  exist  as  to  sound  itself. 
Most  well-educated  and  well-bi-ed  people  seem  to 
speak  so  nearly  alike  that  this  diSiculty  may  appear 
chimerical  to  those  who  have  given  no  attention  to 
this  subject.  Take  an  example  furnished  by  Mr. 
Ellis  himself.     In  his  great  work  on  English  pronun- 


180  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

ciation  (page  106),  referring  to  a  discussion  betweer 
himself  and  Mr.  Bell,  the  author  of  "  Visible  Speech,' 
he  says,  "My  own  pronunciation  of  man  be  [Mr. 
Bell]  finds  frequently  the  same  as  his  pronunciation 
of  men  ;  so  that  to  him  I  pronounce  men  man  (men, 
m-E-n)."  Here  were  two  distinguished  phonologists 
brought  face  to  face,  and  they  not  only  disagreed  as 
to  the  pronunciation  of  so  simple  a  word  as  man^  but 
the  actual  sounds  that  they  gave  it  were  different 
each  to  the  ear  of  the  other.  And  what  is  gained  by 
printing  either  E  or  A  ?  If  men  cannot  agree  upon 
the  sound  of  e  or  a,  how  are  they  heljDed  by  using  E 
or  A?  Again,  in  one  of  the  Pitman  j)honogi-aphic 
tracts  (edited  by  Mr.  Ellis,  I  believe,  or,  if  not  by 
him,  by  Pitman  himself)  I  find  these  pronunciations 
phonographically  indicated :  jenurully  (generally), 
triumphu7it,  i<pokun^  troubul,  evul,  ignorunee^  peopul. 
Now  it  need  hardly  be  said  that  these  words  are  not 
thus  pronounced  by  good  speakers,  who  (giving  no 
thought  to  their  speech)  say  generally,  triumphant, 
spo-kn,  irouhl,  e-vll,  ig-no-rans,  peepl.  Such  illustra- 
tions of  this  difficult}'  might  be  multiplied  a  hundred 
fold ;  and  they  will  receive  some  attention  from  me 
hereafter. 

Then  there  is  another  point  to  be  considered.  We 
have  such  words  as  ivright,  tvrite,  right,  and  rite. 
The  spoken  words  have  exactly  the  same  sound  ; 
they  are  vocally  the  same  word.  Is  it  desirable  thai 
the  difference  between  them  which  is  preserved  in 
spelling  should  be  altogether  destroyed  ?  The  etymo- 
logical argument  to  the  contrary  may  be  worth  some- 
thing, but  not  much.  That  historical  spelling  doea 
aid  etymological  research  seems  to  be  manifest ;  bu 
vliilologists  do  not  need  it ;  the  etymological  view  o 


MODERN  ORTHOGRAPHY   AND   ITS   REFORMATION.      181 

uhe  question  is  really  of  little  importance  on  either 
lide.  But  the  distinction  which  spelling  makes  for 
us  silently  in  our  minds  between  words  of  exactly  the 
Bame  sound  seems  valuable  enough  not  to  be  thrown 
away.  When  Hamlet  tells  us  that  certain  reflec- 
tions upon  mortality  "  must  give  us  pause,"  we  may 
be  thankful  that  phonographic  uniformity  in  spelling 
does  not  yet  thrust  upon  us  the  doggish  notion  of  giv- 
ing us  paws. 

But  suppose  it  settled  that  for  economical  and  other 
reasons  a  thorough  reformation  of  English  spelling 
is  necessary  and  desirable,  how  is  it  to  be  brought 
about  ?  Suppose  the  new  system  elaborated  to  per- 
fection, how  and  when  would  its  adoption  be  secured  ? 
Books  and  letters  are  written  not  to  conform  to  the 
views  of  phonologists  and  philologists,  but  that  they 
may  be  read,  and  read  immediately.  To  be  read 
books  must  be  printed  and  letters  written  in  the  spell- 
ing which  their  intended  readers  have  learned.  If 
their  spelling  differs  much  from  that  to  which  the  in- 
tended readers  are  accustomed  (and  unless  the  differ- 
ence is  great  there  will  be  no  real  reform  ;  no  other 
change  than  that  which  has  been  gradually  goiDg  on 
for  centuries),  they  might  as  well  be  written  in  an- 
other language.  It  is  not  a  question  of  conservatism, 
of  shrinking  from  novelty,  of  laziness,  or,  as  it  is 
sometimes  said,  of  "  pig-headedness  ;  "  it  is  simply 
the  practical  one  of  whether  a  man  shall  write  to  be 
understood,  or  to  be  not  understood ;  of  whether  a 
publisher  shall  print  his  books  in  the  language  of  his 
customers,  or  in  another,  —  a  better,  it  might  be,  but 
Btill  another.  Here  seems  to  be  an  insuperable  dif- 
ficulty in  the  way  of  any  great  change,  and  particu- 
larly of  any  systematic  change  in  English  spelling,  or 


182  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

in  fact  in  the  spelling  of  any  language.  The  purpose 
of  language  is  to  communicate  facts  and  thoughts ; 
and  communication  implies,  in  terms  as  well  as  in  fact, 
the  use  of  that  which  is  common  to  the  two  parties 
concerned.  Phonoiogists  may  elaborate  a  system  of 
spelling  which  shall  be  a  marvel  of  symmetry  and 
precision  ;  and  they  may  use  it  among  themselves,  as 
any  little  association  of  men  may  use  any  other  ci- 
pher. But  whoever  would  address  English-speaking 
folk  must  write  English  as  English-speaking  folk 
write  it ;  and  the  mass  of  any  people,  ninety-nine  in 
a  hundred  of  them,  or  rather  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  in  a  thousand,  are,  and  must  ever  be, 
those  who  have  no  time  for  the  acquirement  of  new 
habits  of  speech,  and  of  spelling  above  all  other 
things.  They  must  use  the  words  and  the  letters  of 
their  language  as  they  have  been  brought  up  to  use 
them.  This  consideration  alone  seems  to  be  conclu- 
sive against  the  possible  introduction  of  a  new  system 
of  orthography ;  and  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  the 
spelling  of  the  immediate  future  will  differ  no  mors 
from  that  of  the  present  than  that  of  the  present  does 
from  that  of  the  immediate  past.  A  reformation  of 
modern  orthography,  to  be  at  all  effectual,  must  needs 
be,  like  the  reformation  of  moral  character,  rej^en 
eration. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

MAX  MtJLLER  AND  PHONETIC  SPELLING.      PITMAN'S 
ALPHABET.      ELLIS'S   "  PAL^OTYPE." 

Peofessoe,  Max  Muller,  in  a  paper  on  "Spell- 
ing," in  the  "  Fortnightly  Review,"  sets  forth  views 
upon  the  subject  than  which  none  could  be  more  rad- 
ical, and  which,  if  put  in  act  and  force,  would  not  so 
much  reform  our  present  spelling  as  uproot  it,  over- 
turn it,  and  sweep  it  away.  His  argument,  like  all 
his  writings,  commands  admiration  by  its  ability,  its 
candor,  and  its  common-sense.  The  very  extremity 
of  the  change  which  he  favors  is  a  claim  upon  the  re- 
spect even  of  those  who  cannot  agree  with  him ;  for  it 
shows  the  sincerity  of  the  man  and  the  logical  clear- 
ness of  his  mind.  It  shows  that  he  sees  the  truth, 
that  if  any  considerable  change  is  to  be  made  in  the 
writing  of  English,  consistency,  which  is  the  very  ob- 
ject sought  to  be  attained,  requii-es  so  great  a  change 
that  the  newly  written  language  will  be  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  a  new  language  to  the  eye.  Indeed,  he 
says,  "  If  we  compare  English  as  spoken  with  Eng- 
lish as  written,  they  seem  almost  like  two  different 
languages,  — as  different  as  Latin  is  from  Italian." 

I  am  one  of  those  who  cannot  see  this  great  differ- 
ence, or  a  much  greater  difference,  if  difference  it 
must  be  called,  than  always  must  exist  between  a 
written  and  a  spoken  language  which  has  a  great  lit- 
erature, the  product  of  centuries.     But  this  I  see,  and 


184  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

I  think  that  all  others,  Professor  Miiller  included, 
must  see  :  that  if  written  and  spoken  English  differ 
almost  as  much  as  Latin  and  Italian,  a  change  which 
should  effect  conformity  between  them  would  make 
the  new  written  language  differ  as  much  from  the  old 
—  that  is,  the  present  —  as  Italian  does  from  Latin. 
The  logic  of  this  conclusion  is  inevitable. 

Now  the  question  is  whether  such  and  so  great  a 
change  is  desirable,  whether  it  would  be  tolerated  by 
the  English-speaking  peoples,  and  whether,  if  desir- 
able and  tolerable,  it  would  be  possible.  Seeing  as 
clearly  as  this  great  philologist  does  the  incongruities 
between  written  English  and  spoken  English,  I  have 
ventured,  with  full  consciousness  of  my  temerity  in 
so  doing,  to  say  that  I  do  not  regard  such  a  change 
as  desirable,  and  that  I  believe  it  to  be  neither  toler- 
able nor  possible.  Professor  Miiller  speaks  avowedly 
for  philologists  and  scholars  ;  I  speak  only  in  the  in- 
terests of  men  of  average  intelligence  and  some  ac- 
quaintance  with  their  mother  tongue  and  its  litera- 
ture, of  whose  cause  I  presume  to  offer  myself  as  an 
advocate. 

Professor  Miiller  begins  by  declaring  that  the  ne- 
cessity for  a  thorough  reform  of  English  spelling  "  is 
no  longer  a  matter  for  argument ; "  whereupon  he  im- 
mediately sets  out  upon  an  argument  in  its  favor  which 
covers  twenty-four  large,  closely  printed  octavo  pages. 
This  might  be  regarded  as  somewhat  inconsistent.  But 
what  if  it  be?  That  does  not  in  the  least  diminish 
the  value  of  what  he  says,  or  injuriously  affect  his 
position.  For  in  spite  of  the  shallow  line  of  which 
so  many  are  eager  to  discover  the  origin,  and  which 
BO  many  more  are  fond  of  quoting,  consistency  is  not 
a  jewel ;  that  is,  it  is  not  so  absolutely  and  of  itself. 


MAX   MIJLLER  AND   PHONETIC  SPELLING.  185 

If  one  argument  is  destructive  of  another  which  ia 
used  by  the  same  person,  that  is  an  inconsistency 
which  is  of  moment.  But  the  mere  fact  that  a  man's 
action  at  one  time  is  inconsistent  with  either  his  action 
or  his  words  at  another  neither  impeaches  the  honesty 
of  his  action  nor  impairs  the  vakie  of  his  opinion. 
Professor  Miiller  adds  to  his  former  remark  one  that 
seems  to  me  full  of  wisdom.  It  is  that  his  experience 
and  observation  of  hfe  has  convinced  him  that  "  noth- 
ing vexes  people  so  much,  and  hardens  them  in  their 
unbelief  and  in  their  resistance  to  reforms,  as  undeni- 
able facts  and  unanswerable  arguments,"  and  that 
"  reforms  are  carried  by  time."  But  his  further  de- 
velopment of  the  same  notion  —  that  "  what  gener- 
ally prevails  in  the  end  are  not  logical  deductions, 
but  some  haphazard  and  frequently  irrational  mo- 
tives "  —  seems  hardly  so  sound.  It  is  true  that 
logical  deductions  rarely  effect  reforms  ;  but  that  by 
which  they  are  effected  is  not  hap-hazard,  irrational 
motives,  but  a  change  in  the  moral  tone  and  in  the 
general  intellectual  perceptions  and  actions  of  man- 
kind. The  world  suddenly  wakes  up  and  sees  that 
what  was  true,  or  was  thought  true,  yesterday,  is  not 
true  to-day  ;  that  what  was  tolerable  a  few  years  ago 
is  not  to  be  tolerated  now.  Reforms  are  made  possi- 
ble by  the  moral  and  intellectual  development  of  the 
race.  Thus,  for  example,  the  belief  in  witchcraft 
and  in  possession  by  evil  spirits  suddenly  disappeared. 
The  passages  in  the  Bible  which  were  supposed  to 
make  a  belief  in  witches  and  in  possession  a  part  of 
«,n  orthodox  religious  creed  remained  unchanged ;  but 
men's  minds  had  changed,  and,  notwithstanding  the 
passages  which  a  few  years  before  they  had  accepted 
as  authoritative,  they  began  to  reject  the  notion  of 


186  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

witchcraft  as  ridiculous,  and  to  regard  the  hanging 
and  drowning  of  supposed  witches  as  not  only  cruel, 
but  absurd. 

Such  a  change  as  this,  however,  either  in  its  sud- 
denness or  its  independence  of  reason  or  authorit}^  is 
not  to  be  looked  for  in  regard  to  the  question  whether 
we  shall  discard  the  present  method  of  writing  Eng- 
lish, which  is  the  gradual,  unconscious  growth  of 
almost  a  thousand  years,  and  adopt  a  new  one,  made 
for  us  out  of  hand  on  the  spot,  and  particularly 
adapted  to  the  speech  of  our  own  day.  For  this  is 
a  question  not  of  right  and  wrong;  nor  is  it  a  phil 
osophical  question,  or  one  in  any  way  of  morals,  or  of 
belief,  or  of  conduct.  It  does  not  concern  man's  rela- 
tions to  man  individually,  socially,  or  politically,  or  his 
intellectual  development,  or  the  present  or  the  future 
condition  of  what  he  calls  his  soul,  which  are  the 
points  upon  which  reforms  are  carried  by  time.  It  is 
a  question  simply  of  convenience  in  the  use  of  a 
means  or  instrument,  upon  which  he  depends  daily 
for  the  communication  of  facts,  thoughts,  and  needs. 
Is  it  easier  and  better  for  him  to  take  the  written 
language  as  he  learned  it,  almost  unconsciously,  in 
his  youth,  and  in  a  form  which  enables  hun  to  com- 
mand all  its  literature  for  at  least  three  hundred  years 
back,  or  to  have  a  brand  new  alphabet,  and,  after  he 
\ias  learned  it,  to  write  down,  to  the  best  of  his  abil- 
ity, not  words,  as  we  now  understand  the  term,  but 
the  sounds  that  he  utters,  witliout  regard  to  any  other 
relation  of  speech  and  writing  whatever?  Is  it,  for 
example,  easier  and  better  for  all  of  us  who  are  more 
than  five  years  old  to  spell  thus  :  years,  assaults, 
physiologists,  reason,  always,  nations,  weights,  exer 
tions,    requires,    fixed    laws,    generations ;   or  thus 


MAX  MULLER  AND  PHONETIC  SPELLING.  187 

yiVz,  asalts,  fiziolojists,  rizun,  alwez,  np/unZi  wets^ 
ekzer/unz^  rikquirz,  fikst  loz,  jenerefimz  ?  These 
words  (in  their  hitter  form)  I  have  taken  ahnost  at 
hap-hazard  from  a  specimen  which  Professor  Miiller 
gives  of  phonetic  printing,  according  to  the  Pitman 
system,  the  one  which  he  advocates. ^ 

Professor  Miiller  asks  any  intelligent  and  unprej- 
udiced reader  whether  he  could  not  read  and  write 
English  according  to  Pitman's  system,  after  a  few 
days'  practice,  with  perfect  ease.  It  may  be  at  once 
admitted  that  such  a  person  with  endeavor  in  good 
faith  could  do  so.  Indeed,  a  man  with  respectable 
powers  of  acquirement  could  in  haK  an  hour  make 
very  considerable  progress  toward  mastering  English 
written  in  this  way,  and  with  a  few  weeks'  daily  prac- 
tice could  read  it,  and  possibly  even  write  it,  with 
correctness  and  ease.  A  man  who  could  not  do  that 
might  better  give  up  learning  anything,  except  by 
\)rocess  of  gradual  absorption.  But  this  is  not  the 
point  at  issue.  So  a  man  might  learn  with  equal 
ease,  and  in  no  longer  time,  to  write  down  the  sounds 
of  English  words  in  German  text  or  in  Greek  letters. 
The  question  rather  is  whether  the  whole  change  in- 
volved in  this  so-called  phonetic  reform  is,  all  things 
ijonsidered,  rational,  desirable,  feasible ;  and  notwith- 
standing Professor  Miiller's  declaration  and  all  that 
has  been  written  upon  the  subject  besides,  this  does 
%eem  to  me  to  be  eminently  a  matter  for  argument. 

To  see  what  the  whole  change  would  be,  it  is  nec- 

*  The  specimen  covers  more  than  half  an  octavo  page;  but  I  could  not 
■l.ote  from  it  a  single  sentence,  however  brief,  for  the  lack  of  other  and 
Jtrange  letters.  The  use  of  the  Greek  omega  and  epsibn,  and  the  old 
ong  s,  enables  me  to  show  very  nearly  the  characters  used  fot  the  vowel 
lound?  of  a/Zand  oi  pay,  and  for  the  mixed  consonantal  sound  («A)  la  th« 
■addle  of  nation. 


188 


EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 


essary  first  to  examine  Pitman's  phonetic  alphabet 
ftnd  compare  it  with  our  own ;  and  before  doing  so  I 
willingly  admit  that  this  alphabet  is  not  only  the 
best  that  has  been  contrived,  but  that  I  cannot  see  in 
it  room  for  material  improvement.  It  is  given  thus 
in  Professor  Miiller's  paper. 


THE   PHONETIC   ALPHABET. 


[The 

phonetic 

letters  in  the  first  and  second  col- 

umns  are   pronounced   like  the  italic  letters 

in  the 

third  column.] 

CONSONANTS. 

Liquids. 

Mutes. 

L 

1 

idl 

P 

p 

rope 

R 

r 

rare 

B 

b 

robe 

Coakscents. 

T 

t 

ia.te 

D 

d 

fade 

W 

w 

wet 

G 

5 

etch 

Y 

7 

yet 

J 

j 

edge 

Aspirate. 

K 

k 

leek 

H 

h 

h&j 

G 

s 

league 

Continuants. 

VOWELS. 

F 

f 

sa/e 

A 

a 

am 

V 

V 

save 

a. 

V 

alma 

& 

i 

wreath 

E 

e 

dl 

a 

ct 

■wreathe 

s 

8 

old 

s 

s 

hiss 

I 

i 

til 

z 

z 

his 

X 

1 

eel 

c 

/ 

vicious 

0 

O 

on 

'I 

3 

vision 

o 

o 

all 

Nasals. 

"S- 

» 

up 

M 

m 

seem 

b 

b 

ope 

N 

n 

seen 

u 

n 

full 

W 

I) 

eing 

UI 

lU 

foci 

Diphthongs'.             i 

I               U    U. 

OU, 

o; 

as  heart 

in                  b^ 

new, 

now, 

hoif 

On  looking  at  this  alphabet  the  reader  who  haa 
been   alarmed   at   the  words  phonetic   and  phonog 


MAX   MULLER   AND   PHONETIC   SPELLING,  189 

raphy  may  be  surprised  at  the  few  changes  in  the 
force  of  letters  which  it  involves.  Of  the  consonants. 
p,  J,  d^  t,  y,  k,  g,f,  V,  s,  2,  m,  w,  ?,  and  r,  fifteen  in  all, 
are  retained  with  their  long-recognized  values.  TF, 
?/,  and  h  appear  also  with  their  values  unchanged. 
But  consonants  are  the  most  stable  elements  of  speech, 
both  in  the  mouth  and  upon  the  pen.  It  is  the  vowel, 
which  is  the  breath  of  life  to  language,  that  varies 
in  sound  from  generation  to  generation,  and  not  in- 
fretjuently  within  a  generation  ;  and  it  is  in  the  en- 
deavor to  define  and  fix  the  vowel  sounds  that  all  in- 
ventors of  phonetic  signs  make  the  greatest  changes, 
and  have  their  ingenuity  most  severely  tested.  Mr. 
Pitman's  alphabet  is  not  an  exception  to  the  general 
rule  in  this  respect.  We  have  inJeed  our  old  friends 
a,  e,  i,  0,  and  u ;  but  the  sign  "a"  is  restricted  to  the 
representation  of  one  sound,  and  that  is  neither  the 
English  name  sound  of  a  («y)  nor  the  primal  sound 
for  which  it  originally  stood  (aA),  but  a  small,  mean, 
intermediate  sound,  —  that  in  am,  hat,  sind pat.  "  E  " 
is  likewise  assigned  and  restricted  to  the  obscure  sound 
in  ell ;  while  for  the  distinctive  English  sound  of  e 
(eg),  as  in  eel,  we  have  an  altogether  new  sign,  as  we 
have  one  almost  new,  a  kind  of  e,  to  express  our  Eng- 
ish  name  sound  of  a.  So  "  o  "  is  deprived  of  its  birth- 
right, which  is  involved  in  its  very  name  (oA),  and  put 
off  with  the  miserable  semblance  of  it  that  there  is 
in  the  vowel  sound  of  on,  which  is  but  ah  compressed 
until  the  life  is  squeezed  out  of  it ;  while  for  the  real 
■'o"  we  have  h,  an  infuriated  Q  with  its  tail  in  the 
uir,  in  a  rage  at  bemg  turned  in  its  proper  form  clean 
out  of  the  alphabet.  To  be  sure,  it  has  no  very  inde- 
perdent  place  there,  leaning,  as  it  does,  always  upon 
u.     But  still  an  alphabet  which   admits   a  sign  for 


190  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Buch  compounds  as  the  consonantal  sounds  in  etch^  in 
wreathe,  in  vicious,  and  in  vuion  might  have  let  poor 
q  alone,  characteristically  leading  as  he  does  so  many 
'(although  comparatively  few)  words  which  mark  the 
Latin  element  in  our  language.  And  we  may  be  sure 
that  most  intelligent  and  fair-minded  persona,  with 
a  moderate  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  would  gladly  be 
saved  from  spelling  queen  kwin,  quack  kwak,  quart 
kiv^i^rt,  queer  kwir,  and  quote  kwbt,  to  which  we  should 
be  reduced  by  the  abolition  of  q  and  the  adoption  of 
the  other  phonetic  changes  proposed  by  Mr.  Pitman 
and  advocated  by  Professor  Miiller. 

The  change  involved  in  the  adoption  of  the  Pitman 
phonetic  alphabet,  or  any  other,  is  not  so  much  in  the 
value  of  individual  letters  as  in  the  entire  structure 
of  written  English.  Thus,  for  example,  the  com- 
bination tch  is  stricken  out,  and  for  catch  we  have  kag, 
and,  as  ng  also  goes,  for  watching  wagiy.  t/does  not 
lose  its  power,  but  the  combination  dg,  for  which  it 
is  substituted,  disappears,  and  for  edge  we  have  ej, 
and  for  knowledge  nolej  ;  our  youthful  spoon  victuals 
become  porij,  a  hedge  a  hej,  and  a  bridge  a  hrij.  And 
so,  with  the  disappearance  of  g  with  its  soft  sound  in 
favor  of  y,  and  the  disuse  of  a  with  its  name  sound 
(for  it  is  the  sound  which  determines  the  sign  in  all 
liases),  we  shall  find  our  rage  rEJ,  our  page  psj,  our 
stage  stej,  and  so  forth.  The  combinations  c^,  si,  and 
ti  will  also  disappear,  and  not  only  will  words  like 
vicious  and  vision  be  written  vi/us  and  viZun  ;  but  to 
relieve  the  contestants  at  spelling  bees  of  doubts  as 
to  sh  and  ti,  gracious  and  damnation  will  be  spelled 
gre/iis  and  damneAm- 

A  great  and  a  very  important  dislocation  of  our 
written  speech  would  be  effected  by  the  making  or 


MAX   MULLER   AND    PHONETIC   SPELLING.  191 

thogriipliy  conform  to  every  change  produced  in  sound 
by  the  addition  of  prefixes  and  sufiixes,  by  inflection, 
and  by  the  change  of  accent.  Thus  clean  would  be 
written  klin^  but  cleanli,'  not  klinli,  but  klenli  ;  for 
nature  we  should  have  negur^  but  for  natural  nagurid  ; 
for  create  kriet,  but  for  creature  krigur  ;  j^roduce  as  a 
verb  would  be  prbdi(Sy  but  as  a  noun  prodiis.  I 
have  thus  but  slightly  indicated,  or  rather  merely 
hinted  at,  the  sort  of  changes  which  would  be  effected 
by  the  introduction  of  a  phonetic  alphabet ;  being 
limited  not  only  by  the  space  which  I  can  give  to  this 
part  of  my  subject,  but  by  the  lack  of  the  phonetic 
type  which  a  fuller  illustration  of  this  point  would 
require. 

Another  effect  of  the  adoption  of  a  phonetic  alpha- 
bet and  system  of  spelling  would  appear  in  a  dimin- 
ished capacity  of  the  new  generation  to  enjoy  the 
literature  of  the  past  unless  it  were  reprinted  (hav- 
ing been  previously  all  rewritten)  in  the  new  Eng- 
lish. I  have  said  that  the  ability  to  read  English  as 
it  is  at  present  written  gives  a  command  of  the  litera- 
ture of  our  language  for  three  hundred  years  back. 
This  is  a  very  moderate  limit.  The  general  miscon- 
ception upon  this  point  by  those  who  are  unacquainted 
with  English  literature  as  it  appears  in  books  of  past 
centuries  is  very  great.  We  have  to  get  past  the 
Elizabethan  period  before  the  slightest  difficulty  ap- 
pears. In  illustration  of  this  position  I  quote  the  fol- 
owing  stanza,  the  first  of  George  Gascoigne's  "  Good- 
morrow,"  as  it  was  printed  just  five  years  more  than 
three  centuries  ago,  in  1575,  the  book  having  been 
the  first  that  came  to  my  hand,  and  the  poem  the 
>ne  to  w  hich  the  book  opened  of  itself :  — 


192  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

"You  that  haue  spent  the  silent  night 

In  sleepe  and  quiet  rest, 
And  ioj-e  to  see  the  cheerfull  lyght 

That  riseth  in  the  East : 
Now  cleare  your  voyce,  now  chere  your  hart, 

Come  helpe  nie  novve  to  siug : 
Each  willing  wyght  come  beare  a  part 

To  prayse  the  heauenly  King." 

This  is  a  fair  representation  of  our  language  as  it 
was  written  and  printed  tliree  hundred  years  ago,  be» 
fore  Spenser  had  published  a  line,  and  while  Shake- 
speare and  Bacon  were  at  grammar  school.  I  shall 
not  insult  the  intelligence  of  any  mature  reader  by 
asking  if  such  a  person  could  not  read  such  verses 
and  enjoy  them  without  hindrance  from  their  spell- 
ing, or  even  without  a  thought  about  it ;  but  I  will 
ask  if  any  child  old  enough  to  read  the  "  Arabian 
Nights"  or  "  Robinson  Crusoe  "  could  not  read  those 
verses  just  as  easily  as  he  could  read  a  paragraph  in 
to-day's  newspaper.  The  child  might  be  struck  and 
amused  by  three  or  four  superfluous  e's,  by  the  use  of 
u  for  V,  and  of  9/  four  times  where  modern  orthogra- 
phy requires  i  ;  but  these  slight  variations  from  the 
modern  style  of  spelling  would  be  no  hindrance  to  his 
enjoyment,  —  rather  from  their  quaintness  a  help  and 
a  stimulus.  Suppose,  however,  that  the  child  or  the 
man  had  been  brought  up  on  the  phonetic  alphabet, 
and  had  seen  the  words  which  compose  those  lines 
always  written  thus  :  — 

Yq  dat  hav  spent  de  silent  nit 

In  slip  and  kwiet  rest. 
And  joi  tui  si  di  qirful  lit 

cTat  rrze^  in  di  1st: 
Now  klir  yur  vois,  now  Qir  yqr  hBrt, 

Kxni  help  mi  now  tiu  siij: 
\q  williij  wit  kxm  ber  o  pBrt 

Tui  prtz  de  hevenii  Kiy; 

and  if  he  had  learnetl  (as  he  would  have  learned) 


MAX   MULLER    AND    PHONETIC   SPELLING.  193 

that  those  sounds  could  be  indicated  only  by  those 
letters,  and  that  those  letters  could  have  those  sounds 
and  no  others,  what  would  be  his  capacity  for  read- 
ing Gascoigne's  verses,  or  those  of  any  other  English 
poet  from  the  pre-Elizabethan  period  to  the  present  ? 
The  fact  that  some  of  the  letters  which  I  have  used 
are  mere  make-shifts,  only  as  nearly  as  possible  like 
Pitman's  phonetic  letters  as  the  types  at  my  com- 
mand will  allow,  is  of  no  moment.  For  the  purposes 
of  illustration  and  argument  one  strange  arbitrary 
sign  is  as  good  as  another.  It  should  be  remarked, 
however,  that  this  stanza  of  Gascoigne's  does  not 
present  this  part  of  the  case  in  so  strong  a  light  as 
*  might  be  thrown  upon  it,  because  it  has  an  unusual 
number  of  words  in  which  the  phonetic  alphabet 
makes  no  change. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  converse  of  this  view. 
Certain  lines  spoken  by  Hamlet  after  the  player 
leaves  him,  in  the  last  scene  of  the  second  act  of  the 
tragedy,  have  already  (Chapter  V.,  page  84)  been  pre- 
sented with  the  pronunciation  of  Shakespeare's  day 
lepresented  in  our  orthography.  For  the  convenience 
of  the  reader  the  passage  is  here  repeated :  —  . 

"  Ees  eet  not  monstroos  tliot  thees  plaj'er  hare, 
Boot  een  s.  feec-sy-on,  een  a  dhrame  oi pass-y-on, 
Could  force  hees  sowl  so  to  liees  own  consate, 
That  from  her  working  all  hees  veesaye  warm'd ; 
Tares  een  hees  ayes;  deesthraction  een  's  aspect, 
A  broken  voice,  and  hees  \\ho\e  J'oonction  shouting 
Weet  forms  to  hees  consate  ;  and  all  for  noting.'^ 

Assuming  this  pronunciation,  then,  as  Shake- 
speare's (from  which  even  according  to  ]\Ir.  Ellis's 
vitw  it  differs  but  sightly),  what  would  be  the  ef- 
fect of  this  and  other  passages  upon  modern  readers 
if  they  had  been  written  in  a  phonetic  alphabet  the 

13 


194  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

powers  of  which  had  remained  without  change,  while 
pronunciation  had  changed,  as  it  must  (and  as  Pro- 
fessor Miiller  admits  that  it  would)  have  done  ? 
Shakespeare's  poetry  and  all  the  poetr}"^  of  the  past 
would,  to  say  the  least,  have  lost  much  of  its  charm 
for  us.  It  would  be  in  a  certain  sense  ridiculous.  We 
could  not  read  it  without  laughing  at  its  antiquated 
and  what  would  seem  to  us  its  uncovith  sound ; 
whereas,  with  its  fixed  orthography,  its  beauty  re- 
mains fixed  likewise.  The  printed  words  are  but  visi- 
ble signs  which  call  up  their  vocal  counterparts,  ac- 
cording to  our  own  mode  of  vocalizing;;  them.  The 
sign  (the  written  word)  remains  the  same,  or  nearly 
the  same,  for  all  generations,  and  each  generation 
gives  to  the  sign  the  sound  of  the  word  according  to 
the  fashion  of  its  own  period.  And  this  is  one  great 
value  of  a  fixed  or  very  slowly  changing  system  of 
spelling.  It  does  not  conform  to  the  floating  fashions 
of  pronunciation  ;  and  it  thus  preserves  the  form  of 
literature  which  would  otherwise  be  destroyed  in  the 
lapse  and  ruin  of  time. 

It  is  thus  with  the  literature  of  Greece  and  of 
Rome.  Professor  Miiller,  with  his  usual  candor,  con- 
fesses that,  notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  that  have 
been  made  by  philologists  and  phonologists,  "  we 
shall  never  be  able  to  speak  with  anything  like  real 
Bcientific  accuracy  of  the  pronunciation  of  ancient 
languages  "  (and  I  may  be  pardoned  for  calling  to 
mind  that  I  published  the  same  opinion  years  ago), 
but  we  can  nevertheless  enjoy  their  literature,  includ- 
ing their  poetry  ;  and  it  is  a  question  whether  we 
cIo  not  enjoy  it  the  more  because  we  are  freed  from 
the  necessity  of  strict  conformity  to  their  pronuncia- 
tion.    In   English,  accent    has   remained    nearly   th« 


MAX   xMULLER   AND    PHONETIC    SrELLING.  195 

same  for  centuries,  the  force  of  consonants  almost  ex- 
actly the  same ;  and  the  consequence  is  that,  notwith- 
standing the  Tariation  in  the  ephemeral  sound  of  the 
vowels,  the  rhythm  of  poetry  and  even  of  prose  re- 
mains unchanged  ;  and  it  is  certainly  protected  from 
the  degrading  effect  which  would  have  been  caused 
by  the  phonetic  spelling  and  printing  of  antiquated 
speech.  The  result  of  a  fixed  orthography  is  an  almost 
perennial  preservation  of  the  beauties  of  literature. 

Professor  Miiller  candidly  recognizes  the  one  great 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  adoption  of  a  phonetic 
system  of  spelling,  —  the  uncertainty  as  to  the  sounds 
which  are  to  be  phonetically  recorded.  Pronuncia- 
tion differs  so  much,  even  among  educated  speakers, 
as  to  render  unattainable  that  uniformity  and  abso- 
luteness in  phonetic  writing  without  which  it  is 
worthless  for  general  and  literary  purposes,  however 
valuable  it  might  be  to  philologists  as  a  record  of 
what  is  or  has  been,  with  which  facts  only  philology 
concerns  itself.  He  says  that  he  could  mention  the 
names  of  three  English  bishops,  "  one  of  wdiom  pro- 
nounced the  vowel  in  Giod  like  gaud,  another  like 
rod,  a  third  like  gady  The  last  pronunciation,  he 
says,  "  would  probably  be  condemned  by  everybod}^" 
True ;  and  yet  it  was  once  the  elegant  pronunciation. 
A.  remnant  of  it,  a  survivor,  appears  in   the  oath, 

'fore  gad,"  which  is  in  the  mouths  of  half  the  fine 
ffcllovvs  in  the  old  comedies.  "  But  the  other  two 
Dronunciations,"  he  adds,  "  would  remain  sanctioned 
by  the  highest  authority,  and  therefore  retained  in 
phonetic  writing."  But  what  is  that  phonetic  writ- 
ing worth  which  gives  us  god  and  gaud  for  the  same 
word  ? 

Another  part  of  this  difficulty  is  the  variableness 


196  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

in  the  perceptions  of  sound,  even  among  professed 
phonologists.  They  do  not  agree  as  to  the  speech  of 
people  generally  ;  and  not  only  so,  they  differ  as  to 
each  other's  speech,  and  are  even  unable  to  record 
their  own  with  satisfactory  accuracy.  Mr.  Ellis  gives 
in  phonetic  type  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  as 
it  is  written  by  another  distinguished  phonologist,  and 
as  he  himself  would  read  it  aloud.  The  difference  is 
BO  great  that  it  seems  in  some  passages  to  be  in  dif- 
ferent languages, —  languages  as  different  as  Italian 
and  Spanish. 

I  rejjroduce  here  one  verse  of  the  parable  (the 
second)  as  Mr.  Ellis  gives  it  in  his  palseotype,  an 
elaborate  phonographic  alphabet  which  he  has  in- 
vented to  represent  accurately  all  known  vocal  sounds. 
The  first  example  was  written  out  by  Mr.  Bell ;  the 
second  by  Mr.  Ellis  himself. 

Melville  Bell. 

^nd  not  mEn^  deiz  aah'ft^r  dh?/  JE-qgKi  SEn  goe*- 
dhmd  aaI  tugE-dh'Bi  ahud  twk  nhiz  dzha.ini  i-hntu 
ah  fai  ka-ntri. 

Alexander  J.   Ellis. 

^nd-na*t  me*ni  dgez  aa.ft-e  dha-js-qg^  sen  gce-dhed 
AaI  tuge'dha  'en-tuk-iz  dzlaa-ni  in-tu-i3-faa  ka-ntri. 

It  will  be  seen  that  even  in  this  one  verse  only 
three  words,  alU  took,  and  to,  are  represented  in  both 
versions  as  having  the  same  sounds.  It  will  also  be 
observed  by  those  who  look  closely  that,  according 
to  his  own  record  of  his  own  speech,  the  former  pres- 
ident of  the  British  Philological  Society  does  not 
iound  the  letter  r  at  the  end  of  words  like  father 


ll\X    MULLLR   AND    PHONETIC   SPELLING.  197 

younger,  and  together,  but  pronounces  them  fatJia, 
youngd,  and  to-gethd.  Like  noteworthy  characteris- 
tics of  his  speech  will  be  found  in  one  of  the  follow- 
ing additional  examples  of  the  difference  of  pronunci- 
ation between  gentlemen  who  are  themselves  eminent 
phonologists ;  they  are  the  last  with  which  I  shall 
aflflict  my  long-suffering  reader.  The  phrase  to  be 
expressed  (for  I  forbear  giving  a  whole  sentence)  is 
the  following :  — 

"  The  written  and  printed  representation  of  the 
Bounds  of  language." 

This  is  given  in  the  Ellis  palasotype  as  its  sounds 
impress  themselves  upon  the  hearing  of  Mr.  Ellis, 
of  Professor  Haldeman,  of  Mr.  Sweet,  and  of  Mr. 
Smart.  1 

Mr.  Alexander   J.   Ellis. 

Dh'B-r^'-t'n  'Bu-prz-ntyd  retprizentee'sh-en  'B-d-h'B- 
sawnz  'BV-l'Baqw^dzhsh. 

Professor  S.   S.  Haldeman. 

Dha  \xitn  3/nd  p[rmt?/d  Lrep.</zentee'sh?/n  ^v  dha 
Ba'wndz  yY  laeqgwidzh. 

Mr.  H.  Sweet. 

Dh'-rrtu-'n-pri-'nted-rE:pr'z'nteysh'n-'v-dh'  saeaao*- 
ndz-' v-lse  -  •  qqg  wedzh . 

Mr.  B.   H.   Smart. 

Dha  rtt-n  end  prz'nt-ed  rep.-rizenteeLishan  av  dha 
paaundz  av  lasq'gwedzh. 

1  Mr.  Henry  Sweet,  one  of  the  foremost  living  Anglo-Saxon  scholars, 
,e  the  author  of  the  llislory  of  English  Sounds,  and  was  in  1876  president 
of  the  London  Philological  Society.  Mr.  Sm;irt  I  have  already  spoken  of  ; 
and  Professor  Haldeman,  of  the  Unive.aity  of  Pennsylvania,  needs  uo 
jitroduction  to  readers  who  are  at  all  interested  in  linguistic  studies. 


198  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

Here  again  we  find  that  liardl}'^  two  words  in  ten 
are  beard  alike  and  expressed  alike  by  four  of  the  most 
eminent  English  orthoepists  and  phonologists.  Even 
the  in  its  short,  unemphatic  utterance  is  expressed 
by  three  of  them  in  three  different  ways.  Behold, 
too,  their  labor  in  representatioyi  and  their  travail  in 
bringing  forth  language,  and  see  the  uncertain  look  of 
Doth  those  words.  See  too  that  Mr.  Ellis,  according 
to  his  own  showing,  does  not  say  and  printed,  but  '>< 
•printid,  nor  of  the  sounds,  but  o'  th'  souns. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  impossibility  of  forming 
a  phonetic  system  of  spelling  needs  no  further  or 
clearer  illustration  than  this.  For  if  even  Ellis  and 
Haldeman  and  Smart  cannot  agree  as  to  what  are 
the  sounds  of  words  and  what  are  the  characters 
proper  to  express  them,  when  they  have  a  system  of 
phonotype  of  minute  exactness  made  to  their  hands, 
what  is  there  to  be  reasonably  hoped  for  in  this 
direction  ? 

Professor  Miiller  shows  at  some  length  that  the 
etymological  significance  of  our  present  spelling  is 
not  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  allowed  to  stand  in 
the  way  of  a  change  which  would  give  us  ease  and 
■".ertainty  in  the  use  of  signs  to  express  sounds.  He 
ueed  not,  I  think,  have  given  so  much  space  and  at- 
tention to  this  part  of  the  subject.  The  etymology 
of  words  as  indicated  by  their  spelling  is  interesting ; 
but  language  is  made  for  daily  use,  not  for  etymolo- 
gists and  philologists,  amateur  or  professional ;  and 
their  intellectual  pleasures  cannot  be  allowed  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  the  world's  convenience.  But  when 
Professor  Miiller,  like  other  eminent  philologists,  ad- 
vocates phonetic  spelling  because  of  the  scientific 
value  that  it  would  have  to  philologists  as  a  phonetic 


MAX    MiJLLER   AND    PHONETIC    SPELLING.  199 

record  of  the  sounds  that  words  had  in  past  genera- 
tions, he  fails  to  see,  or  forgets  for  the  moment,  I 
think,  that  even  if  we  had  a  phonetic  spelling  in 
the  literature  of  the  past  we  should  not  know  what 
sounds  the  characters  were  meant  to  indicate.  And 
who  could  tell  a  hundred  years  hence  what  sound  any 
vowel  had  in  any  word  at  this  day,  except  by  a  pain- 
ful process  of  research,  examination  of  authorities, 
collation  of  rhj'mes,  and  the  like,  and  then  not  with 
certainty  ?  If  in  any  system  of  spelling  certain  let- 
ters are  omitted  which  appear  in  others,  we  may  at 
once  infer  that  those  letters  were  silent  —  on  the  lips 
of  the  p)^rson  who  did  not  write  them.  But  we  can 
infer  nothing  more ;  for  even  by  the  brief  examples 
given  above  we  see  that  letters  are  silent  in  the 
speech  or  to  the  ears  of  Mr.  Ellis  which  are  uttered 
and  heard  by  Mr.  Smart,  and  by  almost  every  one, 
except  careless  and  slovenly  speakers. 

Even  when  great  care  has  been  taken,  as  by  the 
writers  of  past  generations  upon  English  orthoepy 
(and  within  the  last  three  hundred  years  they  have 
been  many),  it  is  almost  impossible,  I  shall  not  say 
to  see,  but  even  by  patient  study  to  discover,  what 
Bounds  were  intended  by  certain  combinations  of  let- 
ters. No  part  of  Mr.  Ellis's  great  work  —  admirable 
for  its  vast  labor,  its  signal  ability,  and  its  candid 
spirit  —  is  more  instructive  by  way  of  warning,  it 
seems  to  me,  than  his  painful  endeavors  to  show  from 
vhe  writings  of  these  old  orthoepists  what  was  the 
pronunciation  of  their  day.  He  generally  fails  to  con- 
vince  me  by  that  means,  as  he  has  failed  to  convince 
others,  admirers,  no  less  than  I,  and  no  more,  of  his 
ability  and  his  learning.^     We  are  to  pronounce  lull 

^  8«je  for  example   On   Early   English  P  or.unciation,  with   Espedd 


200  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

like  2)ull.  Yes  ;  but  how  was  j^ull  pronoimced  ?  like 
fulU  or  like  dull?  Who  can  tell? — and  the  per- 
plexity stretches  back  into  remote  generations.  And 
if  we  are  told  that  it  is  proposed  to  remove  this  doubt 
fore-ver  b}^  giving  but  one  sound  to  the  combination 
ull^  for  example,  the  reply  that  sweeps  that  away  is, 
What  sound  will  you  give  to  ull,  and  what  sound  can 
you  fix  upon  it  ?  Mr.  Ellis  himself  has  declared  that 
the  pronunciation  of  certain  combinations  of  letters 
changes  suddenly,  and  therefore  nil.,  if  it  had  the 
Bound  that  it  has  in  hull  to-day,  might  in  ten  years 
have  the  sound  which  it  also  to-day  has  in  dull^  in 
cull,  and  in  mull.  The  inability  to  indicate  to  the 
mind's  ear  what  is  the  sound  intended  to  be  expressed 
by  certain  signs  or  letters  underlies  the  whole  diffi- 
culty about  phonetic  writing,  and  would  deprive  it  of 
historical  value  even  more  than  of  present  conven- 
ience. 

Here  is  an  example  in  point.  It  is  quoted  by  Mr. 
Ellis  from  Edward  Coote's  "  English  Schoolmaster," 
4to,  1673.  Robert  and  John  are  instructiug  us,  by 
way  of  dialogue,  in  the  niceties  of  English  speech  :  — 

Roh.  But,  Goodman  Taylor,  our  clerk,  when  I  went  to 
Bchool  with  him,  taught  me  to  sound  these  vowels  [in  f ram, 
frem,  frim,  froni]  otherwise  than  (metliiuks)  you  do. 

Joh.  How  as  that  ? 

Roh.  I  remember  he  taught  me  these  syllables  thus :  for 
had,  bed,  bid,  bod,  bud,  I  learned  to  say  bade,  bid,  bide,  bode, 
bude  ;  sounding  a  bed  to  ly  upon  as  to  bid  or  command,  and 
bid.  as  bide,  long  as  in  abide ;  bud  of  a  tree  as  bude,  long 
\iko  rude  ;  for  these  three  vowels,  a,  i,  u,  are  very  corruptly 
and  ignorantly  taught  by  many  unskilful  teachers,  which  is 

Reference  to  Chaucer,  in  Opposition  to  the  Views  maintained  by  Mr.  A.  J. 
Ellis,  F.  R.  S.  IJy  Richard  Francis  Weymouth,  D.  Lit.,  M.  A.,  Fellow  o 
Dnirersity  College,  London. 


MAX    MULLER    AND    PHONETIC   SPELLING.  201 

the  cause  of  so  great  ignorance  of  the  true  writing  in  those 
that  want  the  Latin  tongue. 

Joh.  You  say  true  ;  for  so  did  my  dame  teach  me  to  pro- 
nounce ;  for  s«,  «e,  si.,  so,  su,  to  say  sa,  see,  si,  soo,  sow,  as 
if  she  had  sent  me  to  see  her  sow,  whereas  se  should  be 
sounded  like  the  sea,  and  sic  as  to  sue  one  at  the  law. 

This  passage  refers  merely  to  the  pronunciation  of 
a,  e,  i,  0,  and  7^  in  monosyllables,  not  longer  ago  than 
the  time  of  Dryden's  prime  ;  and  yet  what  can  be 
learned  from  it  ?  Even  according  to  Mr.  Ellis,  noth- 
ing ;  for  he  says  of  it,  "  the  exact  meaning  of  which 
it  is  difficult  to  discover;  "  and  he  supposes  that  it 
must  refer  to  some  childish  school-boy  puzzle  "  like 
that  in  the  spelling  of  HabakkuJc.''  But  I  cannot 
think  so ;  for  the  serious  purpose  of  the  writer  is 
very  apparent,  and  he  makes  it  unmistakable  by 
this  foot-note :  "  Let  the  unskilful  teachers  take 
great  heed  of  this  fault,  and  let  some  good  scholars 
hear  their  children  pronounce  these  syllables."  And 
yet,  simple  as  the  matter  is,  all  that  the  writer  has 
been  able  to  convey  to  us  is  the  fact  that  the  vowels 
had  in  his  day,  or  just  before  it,  sounds  different  from 
those  which  they  have  now.  I  think  that  his  mean- 
ing might  perhaps  be  discovered  by  careful  analysis 
and  comparison  ;  but  none  the  less  does  the  result 
vf  his  phonetic  effort  show  on  its  face  the  futility  of 
phonography  as  a  record  of  value  to  the  philologist. 
It  had  meaning  to  his  contemporaries,  —  to  some  of 
them,  perhaps  to  many ;  but  to  us  it  is  only  a  pho- 
netic puzzle,  the  meaning  of  which  we  may  find  out 
if  we  can. 

Professor  Miiller,  like  the  other  advocates  of  a  pho* 
netic  system  of  spelling,  insists  strongly  upon  the  diffi 
Dulty  with  which  our  present  orthography  is  learned 


202  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

and  the  sufferings  —  one  might  say,  from  the  way  in 
which  these  gentlemen  talk  about  it,  the  agonies  — 
that  children  undergo  in  learning  to  read  and  write 
our  present  written  English.  This  subject  I  have 
considered  before ;  and  I  can  only  repeat  that  those 
great  difficulties  and  those  great  agonies,  as  peculiar 
to  spelling,  I  have  never  been  able  to  see.  I  never 
knew  them  m^^self ;  nor  do  I  remember  them  in  any 
of  my  school-fellows.  There  were  difficulties  ;  but  so 
there  were  difficulties  in  learning  anything,  —  rather 
less  in  spelling  than  in  others.  I  know  of  letters 
written  by  boys  eight  or  nine  years  old  which  are 
quite  correctly  spelled  ;  and  I  repeat  that  with  an 
unusually  wide  range  of  obsei'vation  for  many  years 
in  the  writing  of  persons  who  have  had  little  educa- 
tion—  none  rightly  so  called  —  a  mistake  in  spelling 
is  the  rarest  error  I  have  observed.  We  learn  spell- 
ing quite  as  much  b}'  gradual  absorption  of  its  meth- 
ods as  by  teaching  and  the  iterative  practice  of  the 
school-room.  We  learn  to  spell  by  reading,  those 
who  read  much  being  generally  correct  spellers ;  and 
the  result  of  my  observation  is  that  most  intelligent 
persons  of  average  education,  if  asked  to  spell  a  word 
that  they  had  never  seen  or  heard  before,  would  spell 
it  correctly.  Some  might  fail ;  but  what  matter  if 
they  did  ?  Is  there  anything  so  very  grievous  in 
spelling  a  word  not  according  to  "the  dictionary"? 
I  cannot  see  that  there  is.  As  for  myself,  if  1  were 
caught  misspelling  a  word,  I  should  not  care  one 
drop  of  this  ink  with  which  I  am  writing;  and  in 
iaying  this  I  am  not  pleading  for  my  own  errois,  for 
I  have  reason  to  believe  that  I  have  never  misspelled 
a  word  since  I  was  old  enough  to  be  trusted  with  per 
n,nd  ink.     J  Jut  many  a  much  better  and  abler  mar 


MAX   MULLER   AND    PHONETIC   SPELLING.  203 

has  done  so  ;  and  what  of  it  ?  I  cannot  see  that  this 
matter  of  speUing  is  worth  all  the  fuss  that  is  made 
about  it. 

In  any  case,  spelling  must  be  merely  arbitrary,  a 
matter  of  fashion  and  tacit  agreement.  A  sound  haa 
no  real  relation  to  a  sign  ;  and  we  may  as  well  have 
signs  for  words  (as  we  do  now)  as  signs  for  single 
sounds.  And  if  we  had  such  signs  for  single  sounds 
they  would  soon,  by  the  variableness  of  speech,  cease 
to  indicate  them,  and  would  stand  for  some  other 
sounds.  For,  as  Professor  Mliller  incidentally  ad- 
mits in  one  place,  this  difficulty  is  "  inherent  in  the 
very  life  of  language  ;  "  and,  as  he  justly  says  else- 
where, "  writing  indicates,  but  does  not  paint,  sounds." 
In  these  admissions  he  has,  it  seems  to  me,  given  up 
the  very  cause  for  which  he  was  doing  battle. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

PHILOLOGISTS  AS  REFORMERS.      MR.  ELLIS'S  GLOSSIC 
SPELLING. 

We  have  seen  (in  Chapter  X.)  how  long  ago  and 
how  very  early  in  the  history  of  our  language  men 
curious  as  to  spelling  began  to  contrive  modes  of  pho- 
netic orthography,  and  how  continuous  such  efforts 
liave  been  to  the  present  day.  Now,  however,  there 
is  a  phonetic-spelling  "  movement."  The  slender  suc- 
cession of  individual  reformers  through  centuries  is 
suddenly  in  one  generation  developed  into  a  band 
of  agitators,  somewhat  numerous,  and  in  some 
instances  highly  distinguished,  who  clamor  for  a 
change.  Just  so  a  rocket  rises  through  the  darkness 
in  a  thin  line  of  light  and  then  bursts  into  a  blaze  of 
stars ;  but  that  is  the  end  of  it ;  the  stars  pass  off  in 
smoke.  I  feel  very  sure  that,  bright  as  many  of 
the  names  are  which  now  illumine  it,  such  will  be 
the  end  of  spelling  reform.  But  of  the  numerous- 
uess  of  the  advocates  of  a  change  in  the  written 
form  of  English  I  had  only  an  imperfect  notion  be- 
fore the  receipt  of  various  printed  records  of  their 
loings,  which  have  been  kindly  sent  me  within  the 
last  year  or  two.  There  are  spelling-reform  asso- 
ciations, and  verily  they  have  "  transactions,"  and, 
faith,  they  print  'em  ;  not  always,  however,  very 
ntelligibly  to  the  general  eye  and  mind.  There  are 
writers  who  publish  in  magazines  each  his  little  proj- 
ect for  changing  at  a  word,  and  by  law  or  by  geiv 


PHILOLOGISTS   AS   REFORMERS.  206 

eral  consent  —  sort  of  intellectual  mass-meeting  — 
the  outward  and  visible  form  of  a  language  which  is 
the  product  of  many  centuries  of  well-rooted  growth. 
There  are  conventions :  one  such  was  held  in  Phila- 
delphia some  two  years  and  a  half  ago ;  another  more 
recently  in  London.  The  Bulletin  of  the  Spelling 
Reform  Association,  No.  1,  which  bears  the  ominous, 
and,  were  it  not  for  my  respect  for  individuals  con- 
nected with  it,  I  should  say  the  fitting,  date  of  April, 
1877,  opens  with  the  declaration :  "  Never  before  in 
the  history  of  the  language  has  there  been  so  much 
promise  of  a  reform  in  our  orthography  as  at  the 
present  time." 

These  facts  explain  to  me  the  interest  with  which 
I  have  learned,  somewhat  to  my  surprise,  that  what 
I  have  written  upon  a  dry  subject,  and  it  seems  to 
me  almost  a  trivial,  is  read.  It  is  timely.  I  am 
sorry  for  it.  People  might  be  much  more  profitably 
employed  in  using,  or  even  in  studying,  the  language 
as  it  is,  than  in  the  attempt  to  change  its  written 
form ;  an  attempt  which,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
thing  to  be  changed,  can  end  only  in  utter  failure. 
No  one  who  dreads  the  sudden  and  violent  disturb- 
ance of  the  visible  surface  of  our  lanp;uao;e  and  its 
literature  need  regard  the  phonetic-spelling  move- 
ment with  any  apprehension  of  evil.  It  will  effect 
no  change  of  importance.  Changes  in  spelling  there 
will  be,  but  not  in  virtue  of  the  "  movement ; "  nor 
will  the  changes  be  those  for  which  the  reformers 
are  clamoring.  Our  alphabet  and  our  spelling  will 
Burely  remain,  for  some  generations  at  least,  very 
much  what  they  have  been  for  centuries. 

The  advocates  of  a  destruction  of  the  present  writ- 
ten English  language  for  the  sake  of  phonetic  spell* 


206  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

iiig,  however,  in  presenting  their  case  to  the  public 
insist  strongly  upon  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  emi- 
nent English  philologists  are  favorers  of  a  reformed 
spelling  of  the  English  language.  To  a  certain  ex- 
tent this  is  true.  It  is  certainly  true  that  nearly  all 
of  them  are  very  much  dissatisfied  with  the  present 
English  spelling  ;  but  of  a  consent  among  them  as  to 
what  refoi^m  shall  be  and  how  it  shall  be  brought 
about,  I  have  been  able  to  discover  no  indications. 
Until  there  is  such  a  consent,  all  expression  of  dis- 
content and  crying  for  reform  is  very  much  like  the 
howling  of  wolves  against  a  storm ;  it  expresses  dis- 
content and  a  desire  of  change,  but  it  does  nothing 
more.  A  phonetic  reformer,^  who  makes  the  most 
of  the  "movement,"  has  nevertheless  recently  ad- 
mitted that  "  it  would  be  a  dangerous  error  to  sup- 
pose that,  after  all,  a  very  great  deal,  comparatively 
speaking,  has  been  gained." 

Now,  what  is  it  that  has  been  gained  ?  Merely 
that  certain  experts  an-d  specialists  in  language  — 
men  who  give  themselves  up  not  to  the  study  of  liter- 
ature nor  to  the  practice  of  wi'iting  or  that  of  speak- 
ing, but  to  the  scientific  study  of  the  history  and 
structure  of  language — have  declared  themselves  in 
favor  of  a  phonetic  change  in  English  spelling.  In 
the  first  place,  the  fact  that  they  are  experts  and 
specialists  in  language  is  against  them  in  this  matter, 
Upon  questions  of  fact  in  the  history  of  language, 
upon  the  relations  of  languages  and  of  words,  upon 
the  indications  which  language  gives  of  the  connec- 
tion of  peoples  and  of  the  development  of  civilization^ 
the  opinions  of  such  men  are  to  be  received  with  def 

1  Professor  Lounsburj',  in  Scribner's  Magazine,  October  and  Novembef 
1.879. 


PHILOLOGISTS    AS   REFORMERS.  207 

erence,  and  to  be  disputed  by  laymen  with  caution, 
if  at  all,  and  even  with  humility  ;  but  as  to  what  it 
is  best  for  us  English-speaking  and  English-writing 
people  to  do  with  our  mother  tongue,  our  household 
words,  our  mean  of  common  life  from  day  to  day, 
their  opinions  are  likely  to  be  worth  much  less  than 
those  of  the  mass  of  intelligent,  well-educated,  and 
thoughtful  people  who  have  not  made  the  study  of 
language  a  specialty. 

Specialists  and  experts  are  always  to  be  distrusted 
upon  practical  questions,  if  those  questions  are  con- 
nected with  their  specialty.  In  particular,  specialists 
in  language  come  to  look  upon  language  as  being 
chiefly  and  almost  entirely  a  subject  of  analysis,  of 
comparison,  of  historical  inquiry.  The  facts  that  it 
enables  the  three  living  genei^ations  of  men  to  com- 
municate daily  and  hourly  their  thoughts  and  wishes 
to  each  other,  and  that  by  it  they  are  also  enabled  to 
know  and  to  enjoy  the  thoughts  and  to  sympathize 
with  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  generations  through  cent- 
uries past,  are  comparatively  little  regarded  by  them. 
And  it  is  to  be  remarked,  in  connection  with  this 
view  of  their  case,  that  the  pinncipal  reason  given  (if 
I  mistake  not)  by  almost  every  one  of  the  eminent 
specialists  in  language  who  has  entered  the  phonetic- 
reform  movement  for  his  contempt  of  the  present 
English  spelling  and  his  desire  for  a  phonetic  reform 
is  that  any  other  than  phonetic  spelling  conceals  ety- 
mology, does  not  record  the  history  of  speech,  and 
makes  philological  research  difficult.  That  this  is 
true,  in  a  measure,  no  one  who  has  given  any  consid- 
erable attention  to  the  historical  study  of  even  his 
own  language  can  for  a  moment  doubt.  But  what 
of  that  ?     Is  language  made  for  philologists,  or  are 


208  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

philologists  made  for  language  ?  What  is  it  to  ua 
who  wish  to  read  the  letters  and  the  books  of  our 
friends  and  neighbors,  of  our  fathers  and  our  grand- 
fathers and  our  great-great-grandfathers,  and  to  be 
intelligible  to  our  children  and  our  grandchildren, 
that  our  way  of  writing  is  not  what  the  philologist  of 
the  future  may  approve  ?  For  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  no  change  can  help  the  philologist  of  the  present. 
The  past  is  fixed.  And  shall  we  write,  not  for  our 
own  convenience,  but  for  that  of  the  coming  philolo- 
gist ?  Shall  we  then  in  like  manner  also  think,  not 
as  our  reason  and  our  instincts  lead  us,  but  with  the 
metaphysician  of  the  future  in  our  eye  ;  and  shall 
we  live,  not  according  to  our  own  convictions  of  right 
and  wrong,  but  in  the  hope  of  pleasing  some  great 
moral  anatomist  of  the  soul  hereafter  ? 

The  positions  taken  by  the  phonologists  are  that 
English  orthography  cannot  be  mastered  without 
study,  and  that  it  is  no  guide  to  pronunciation.  The 
first  of  these  is  true,  and  it  ought  to  be  true ;  the  sec- 
ond is  not  true  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  urged. 
"  Who,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Pitman  ("  Fonetic  Nuz  "  Pit- 
man) at  the  London  spelling-reform  convention,  — 
"  who  could  spell  beauty  without  having  seen  it  writ- 
ten ?  "  To  which  the  reply  is,  first,  that,  although 
persons  whose  notion  of  the  functions  of  letters  is 
limited  to  such  a  use  of  them  as  b  u  5m,  t  e  te^  bu-te^ 
would  probably  not  be  able  to  spell  beauty  without 
having  seen  it  written,  their  incapacity  is  of  very  lit- 
tle importance,  certainly  of  not  enough  to  justify  a 
disturbance  of  the  visible  structure  of  an  ancient  lan- 
guage and  a  great  literature.  Next,  that  hundreds 
out  of  every  thousand  could  spell  beauty  if  they  had 
first  acquired   some  knowledge  of   the  structure    o| 


PHILOLOGISTS   AS    REFORMERS.  209 

English  words  ;  and  without  such  knowledge  of  any 
subject,  with  what  reason  is  a  man  expected  to  have 
any  mastery  of  it  ?  Mr.  Ellis  said,  if  not  on  this  oc- 
casion, at  another  time,  that  a  man  on  seeing  a  word 
written  does  not  know  how  to  pronounce  it  until 
he  is  told, — an  opinion  which  seems  to  me  quite 
wrong.  Under  the  condition  just  mentioned,  I  am 
sure,  from  observation  and  experiment,  that  nine  in- 
telligent men  out  of  ten  would  pronounce  correctly, 
at  sight,  an  English  word  that  they  had  never  met 
with  before.  There  is  no  limit  to  the  extravagance 
of  specialists  who  have  gone  ojff  on  an  agitation. 

At  this  convention  Dr.  Gladstone  made  much  of 
the  point  that  differing  standards  prevail  in  differ- 
ent school  districts,  and  that  pupils  "are  plucked, 
in  one  district  for  spelling  honor  with  the  u,  and  in 
another  for  spelling  it  without."  What  if  they  are  ? 
It  only  shows  the  pettiness  of  pedagoguery.  What 
difference  does  it  make  whether  a  boy  or  a  man  spells 
lionor  or  honour?  One  way  is  just  as  good  as  the 
other.  Both  spellings  have  support  in  etymology  and 
in  analogy.  The  question  is  merely  one  of  fashion 
and  of  convenience.  The  difference  is  not  worth  a  mo- 
ment's thought.  This  sort  of  fussiness  justly  brings 
word-mongers  into  contempt. 

Mr.  Robert  Lowe,  M.  P.,  who  has  joined  the  ranks 
of  the  reformers,  sent  a  letter  to  the  convention,  in 
which  he  said  that  as  he  was  informed  that  there  are 
thirty-nine  sounds  in  the  language,  and  there  are  only 
twenty-four  letters,  he  thought  "  that  fifteen  new 
letters  should  be  added,  so  that  there  be  a  letter  for 
every  sound,  and  that  every  one  should  write  as  he 
speaks^  The  result,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing, 
would  be  striking  and  interesting,  if  not  altogether 

14 


210  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

lovely.  He  added  that  he  could  get  no  boys  to  read 
to  him  "  tolerabl}^ ;  "  they  "  have  no  idea  of  the  pro- 
nunciation of  tlie  language."  His  only  remedy  for 
this  is  "to  teach  all  the  thirty -nine  sounds  together 
with  the  letter  which  presents  each  of  them."  Thia 
last  is  amazing.  It  would  seem  that  a  man  of  Mr. 
Lowe's  general  intelligence  should  know  that  right 
pronunciation  of  a  language  is  not  learned  from  letters, 
but  from  daily  intercourse  with  those  who  speak  it 
well,  and  by  means  of  perceptions  naturally  fine  and 
highly  cultivated.  He  could  find  many  a  well-bred 
woman  who  had  had  very  little  education,  and  v^ho 
never  gave  the  question  of  the  powers  of  letters  a 
thought,  whose  pronunciation  of  English  is  unexcep- 
tionably  good,  and  who  could  read  to  him  much  bet- 
ter than  tolerably.  English  orthography  was  fixed 
in  the  days  of  Queen  Anne,  and  was  then  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  just  what  it  is  now.  But  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough,  one  of  the  greatest  generals 
that  ever  lived,  an  accomplished  and  successful  di- 
plomatist, an  elegant  man  of  society,  whose  English, 
we  may  be  sure,  was  as  fine  as  was  ever  spoken,  could 
not  spell.  And  what  matter  ?  What  had  liis  spell- 
ing to  do  either  with  his  ability  and  his  accomplish- 
ments or  with  his  English  ?  I  am  informed  that  the 
late  Dr.  Nott,  the  distinguished  president  of  Union 
College,  spelled  so  badly  that  his  wife  had  to  correct 
all  his  manuscripts.  Unfashionable  spelling  may  be 
ruinous  to  dunces ;  but  it  is  of  little  consequence  how 
a  clever  man  spells,  especially  if  he  is  in  the  hands 
of  a  competent  wife  or  a  careful  proof-reader. 

The  most  strikino-  and  characteristic  remark  made 
at  this  convention  came  from  the  Reverend  A.  H 
Sayce,  of  Oxford,  an  eminent  philologist  and  Orienta 


PHILOLOGISTS    AS    REFORMERS.  211 

scholar,  who  first  took  the  chair.  He  objected  to 
English  spelling  that  it  "  cultivated  an  unphilological 
habit  of  mind,"  —  a  criticism  not  less  than  amazing 
in  its  scope  and  purpose.  In  very  deed  it  is  true. 
And  what  could  be  more  deplorable  than  an  unphilo- 
logical habit  of  mind  among  the  millions  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking people !  It  is  much  to  be  feared  that 
the  habit  of  Mr.  John  Bright's  mind  is  hopelessly 
unphilological.  Certain  it  is  that  John  Bunyan's 
was  so.  Indeed,  the  Bedford  tinker  was  so  deprav- 
edly  unphilological  that  he  spelled  one  well-known 
word  both  slough  and  slow.  But  perhaps  it  may  be 
reasonably  doubted  whether  philological  habits  of 
mind  would  have  improved  either  the  English  or  the 
delivery  of  John  Bright's  speeches,  or  the  style  of 
"  The  Pilgrim's  Progress."  Could  there  be  better 
illustration  than  this  remark  of  the  unfitness  of  philo- 
logical specialists  to  deal  with  such  a  practical  ques- 
tion as  that  of  a  change  in  the  written  form  of  a  lan- 
guage and  a  literature  like  the  English  ! 

Dr.  Gladstone  brought  before  his  fellow  philolo- 
gists a  subject  upon  which  many  of  them  seem  to  have 
taken  leave  of  facts  and  of  their  own  common-sense. 
He  said  that  the  means  of  effecting  a  change  to  a 
uew  system  of  spelling  "  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
government,"  and  thereupon  Mr.  Ellis  proposed  the 
third  resolution  :  "  That  as  no  change  would  be  ef- 
fectual unless  the  amended  spelling  were  accepted  by 
school  inspectors,  civil  service  examiners,  and  public 
depai'tments  side  by  side  with  the  present  spelling, 
the  assistance  of  the  government  will  be  required." 

True,  indeed,  most  learned  and  most  candid  of  pho- 
nologists ;  but  there  is  yet  another  body  whose  aid  ia 
">£  incalculably  moi-e  importance,  and  without  which 


212  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

the  assistance  of  the  government  would  not  bo  of  one 
feather  power,  —  the  bulk  of  English-speaking  peo- 
ple. It  is  for  them  that  books  and  newspapers  are 
printed,  and  not  for  philologists,  or  for  phonologists, 
or  for  others,  who,  being  neither  philologists  nor  pho- 
nologists, take  it  upon  themselves  to  agitate  a  spell- 
ing reform.  What  would  induce  the  publishers  of 
the  leading  journals  in  New  York  and  in  London  to 
make  the  reading  of  newspapers  difficult  to  the  three 
generations  —  old,  middle-aged,  and  young  —  whom 
they  address  daily  ?  What  would  induce  the  hun- 
dreds of  publishers  of  millions  of  English  volumes 
yearly  to  lay  phonetic  stumbling-blocks  and  phono- 
logical fun-provokers  along  every  line  of  eveiy  page 
they  issued  ?  If  ninety-nine  in  every  hundred  of  them 
should  do  so,  they  would  merely  ruin  themselves  and 
make  the  "  eternal  fortune  "  of  the  hundredth  who 
did  not.  It  is  not  surprising  that  ray  first  corre- 
spondent, heretofore  mentioned,  would  have  "  Con- 
gress finish  the  work  "  which  some  spelling  reformers 
had  begun ;  but  even  Professor  March  announces, 
with  evident  expectations  of  success,  that  "  the  re- 
formers have  accordingly  proposed  to  add  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  Philological  Association  whatever  can  be 
gained  by  government  sanction.  They  petition  Con- 
gress to  move  for  a  joint  commission  of  the  English- 
speaking  peoples  to  report  upon  the  amendments."  ^ 
This  is  midsummer  madness.  In  the  first  place.  Con- 
gress has  no  power,  no  right,  to  interfere  in  any  way 
with  the  question  of  language  or  of  school  instruction. 
Any  law  having  such  a  purpose  would  be  unconstitu- 
tional and  void.  Nor  has  Congress  the  power  even 
lo  appoint  such  a  commission  as  that  proposed.     I. 

1  Princeton  Review,  January,  1880. 


PHILOLOGISTS   AS    REFORMERS.  213 

the  State  of  Louisiana  should  choose  to  pass  its  stat- 
utes in  the  French  language,  and  to  have  that  Ian 
guage  spoken  in  its  courts  and  taught  in  its  schools, 
if  California  should  do  the  same  as  to  the  Spanish  lan- 
guage, if  Colorado  should  in  like  manner  adopt  the 
vernacular  of  the  Utes,  and  if  New  York  should  re- 
turn to  the  language  of  Nevr  Amsterdam,  they  would 
have  the  right  to  do  so,  and  Congress  has  not  the 
power,  on  the  one  hand,  to  say  them  nay,  or,  on  the 
other,  to  appropriate  a  dollar  of  their  money  for  the 
improvement  of  the  English  language,  or  of  any  other. 
But  if  Congress  had  the  general  powers  of  Parlia- 
ment in  this  matter,  they  both  together  would  be  as 
powerless  as  the  three  tailors  of  Tooley  Street.  Con- 
gress may,  if  it  pleases,  decree  that  all  pleadings  be- 
fore the  Supreme  Court  shall  be  in  Norman  French, 
as  Parliament  may  decree  that  the  royal  assent  to  a 
bill,  instead  of  being  announced  as  La  Heine  le  vult^ 
shall  be,  The  Queen  wills  it.  But  as  to  affecting  the 
way  in  which  one  man  writes  for  another  to  read,  all 
the  Congresses  and  Parliaments  and  conventions  that 
were  ever  convoked  would  be  as  powerless  as  a  boy 
.vhistling  against  the  north  wind.  True,  the  boy's 
whistle  has  some  power,  and  so  have  conventions  ;  but 
as  in  the  former  case  no  very  great  change  is  made 
in  the  course  or  in  the  velocity  of  the  wind,  so  in  the 
.atter  the  progress  of  the  language  would  continue  in 
its  normal  lines,  quite  unaffected  by  anything  in  the 
form  of  "  whereas,"  "  resolved,"  or  "  be  it  enacted." 
Congress  and  Parliament  can  give  laws  to  the  two 
great  English-speaking  peoples  ;  but  they  cannot  give 
laws  to  the  language,  even  the  written  language,  of 
ihose  peoples.  Such  laws  ^re  formed  by  the  uude* 
liberate  and  almost  uncc.iscious  action,  and  settled  by 


214  EVEKY-DAY    EXGLTSH. 

the  unexpressed  assent,  of  those  peoples  themselves 
—  guided    some\Yhat,  but  not  controlled,  as  to  uiii 
formit}'  in  public  spelling  by  printers  and  proof-read- 
ers. 

Reform  in  other  matters  is  possible  by  law,  or  by 
individual  or  concerted  action.  Abuses  may  be  thus 
done  away  with,  old  things  set  aside  for  better  new 
ones,  the  right  of  one  day  be  made  by  statute  law 
the  crime  of  the  next.  Not  so  with  language  in  any 
of  its  departments.  Some  of  the  spelling  reformers 
speak  of  change  in  this  matter  as  if  it  were  like 
change  in  any  other,  —  most  vainly  and  ignorantl}^ 
You  may  pull  down  the  house  that  covers  your  own 
head,  if  you  like,  and  live  roofless  and  hearthless  until 
3'ou  can  build  you  another  and  a  better  ;  but  you  can- 
not by  law  or  any  other  force  make  the  language 
spoken  by  a  people  with  a  past  different  to-morrow, 
or  next  week,  or  next  month,  or  next  year,  from  what 
it  is  to-day.  And  were  this  possible.  Congress  is  the 
very  last  body  to  whom  the  power  to  do  it  should  be 
committed. 

The  phonologists  and  philologists,  notwithstanding 
Jieir  single-eyed  devotion  to  their  specialty,  have 
come  at  last  to  the  perception  that  an  attempt  to  in- 
troduce a  phonetic  spelling  of  English,  or  anything 
like  it,  "  will  not  do."  A  phonetic  English  orthog- 
raphy would  bring  in  chaos,  and  put  at  once  a  stop  to 
reading  books  and  to  communication  by  writing.  Of 
all  these  specialists,  Mr.  Ellis  is  the  most  experienced, 
the  most  learned  in  phonology,  and,  it  would  seem, 
the  most  under  the  guidance  of  common-sense.  He 
has  invented  and  proposed  for  adoption  a  transition 
spelling,  by  which  the  passage  from  the  orthographic 
English  of  to-day  to  the  phonographic  English  of  thf 


PHILOLOGISTS    AS    REFOIIMKR^.  215 

future  shall  be  made  easy.  Others  have  made  like 
endeavor;  but  there  bemg  a  necessary  similarity 
among  all  such  schemes,  and  his  being  likely  to  be 
the  best,  it  may  well  be  accepted  and  considered  as 
a  representative  of  them  all.  INIoreover,  he  has  ac- 
companied it  with  some  remarks  which  are  of  great 
significance  and  of  the  utmost  importance. 

Mr.  Ellis  calls  his  scheme  of  transition  spelling 
"  glossic,"  and  he  has  set  it  forth  in  a  paper  which 
was  read  before  the  British  Philological  Society,  and 
which  he  has  since  issued  for  private  circulation 
The  title  of  that  work,  a  pamphlet  of  thirty-two 
pages,  as  it  is  printed  upon  the  title-page,  is  worth 
quoting  at  full  length.     It  is  :  — 

"  On  Glosik,  a  new  sistem  ov  Ingglisli  speling,  proa- 
poa-zd  faur  konkur-ent  eus,  in  aurder  too  rernedi  dhi  di- 
fek-ts  withou-t  ditrak-ting  from  dhi  valeu  ov  our  prezent 
aurthog-rafi.  Bei  Aleksaander  Jon  Ells,  F.  R.  S.,  F.  S.  A., 
&s.,  author  ov  '  Erli  Ingglish  Proammsiai-shen,'  «S:s.  Ree- 
printed  faur  preivet  serkeula-sheii  from  dhi  transakshens  ov 
flhi  Filoaloj-ikel  Soasei-iti  for  1876." 

This  method  of  writing  Mr.  Ellis  calls  "  glossic," 
that  is,  according  to  the  tongue,  in  opposition  to 
"  nomic,"  the  name  which  he  gives  to  the  conven- 
tional writing  which  has  prevailed  for  the  last  three 
hundred  years  with  few  and  slowly  made  changes. 
He  wrote  (that  is,  composed)  this  very  able  paper 
in  the  glossic  spelling,  and  he  tells  us  that  he  found 
'•■hat  spelling  no  check  upon  the  flow  of  his  thoughts. 
This  fact  has  some  value,  but  not  much  ;  because  Mr. 
Ellis  has  been  engaged  for  thirty  years  and  more  in 
phon('tic  studies  and  experiments,  and  what  would  bo 
easy  to  him  might  be  impossible  to  others.  It  must 
oe  admitted  that  almost  anv  intellitrent  and  educated 


216  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

person  can  read  this  glossic  writing  with  little  trouble 
after  some  study.  But  this  fact  is  also  of  small  im- 
portance, because  we  can  any  of  us  as  easily  read 
and  understand  a  letter  misspelled  from  beginning  to 
end.  We  can  read  "  Josh  Billings,"  and  are  some- 
times not  unable  to  laugh  at  him,  if  not  always  with 
h/m. 

Mr.  Ellis  proposes  his  glossic  writing,  as  I  have  re- 
marked before,  only  as  a  transition  from  the  present 
spelling  to  a  more  perfect  one,  —  "a  transiteri  in- 
strooment,"  as  he  calls  it.  With  all  his  earnest  ad- 
vocacy of  reform  in  spelling,  he  does  not  underrate 
the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  any  change.  His  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject  is  too  great  for  that.  He,  an 
accomplished  linguist  and  philologist,  — facile  prin- 
ceps  of  English  phonologists,  —  does  not  say,  "  With 
the  simplest  form  for  a  letter,  and  a  letter  for  each 
sound  in  the  language,  there  is  no  need  of  further 
theory  ;  what  we  want  is  action,"  as  so  many  others 
do.  Of  such  reformers,  and  of  such  crass  iconoclasra, 
he  gives  an  opinion  which  I  shall  render  into  com- 
mon English  writing  :  — 

"  There  are  many  in  England,  France,  Germany,  and 
America  who  have  crude  notions  on  the  subject,  and  of 
these  the  least  informed  would  probably  be  ready  with  cut- 
and-dried  systems.  But  there  are  perhaps  not  twenty  men 
.in  the  world  capable  of  initiating  or  discussing  any  scheme 
of  universal  writing.  [True  phonetic  writing  is,  of  course, 
of  universal  application.]  As  regards  myself,  I  can  only 
Bay  that  when,  in  times  past,  I  imagined  I  could  construct 
Buch  an  alphabet,  I  was  very  ignorant  of  what  it  had  to  ef- 
fect, and  that  I  have  only  some  faint  glimmerings  even  yet 
As  Boon  as  I  come  out  of  the  friendly  obscurity  of  the  study 
Into  the  broad  daylight  of  practical  application,  I  feel  h()\i 


PHILOLOGISTS    AS    RKFORMERS.  217 

little  I  have  yet  learned,  and  how  much  remains  to  be  ac- 
complished. My  glossic  writing,  therefore  [his  last  expe- 
dient], ev#n  in  its  most  developed  form,  is  but  a  transitory 

instrument,  a  tool  to  be  hereafter  discarded Even 

for  English  I  regard  it  as  a  mere  auxiliary  scheme,  worth 
trial,  of  educational  and  social  as  well  as  literary  and  phil- 
ological value;  quite  as  good,  certainly,  as  our  present  or- 
thography, and  in  many  respects  far  superior  to  it,  but  not 
intended  to  supersede  that  orthography  in  which  are  em- 
balmed the  treasures  of  English  thought." 

Thus,  frankly,  modestly,  cautiously,  speaks  the  great- 
est master  of  English  phonology  that  has  ever  lived. 
He,  who  has  spent  a  long  life  in  the  study,  leaves  to 
others  the  production  of  their  cut-and-dried  systems. 
He  confesses  that  his  former  notions  on  the  subject 
were  vain  imaginations.  He  has  found  that  before 
the  test  of  practical  application  elaborated  systems  of 
reformed  writing  with  brand  new  alphabets —  "  a  let- 
ter for  every  sound  "  —  crumble  up  into  literary  dust 
and  ashes.  He  knows  that  there  are  hardly  twenty 
men  in  the  world  capable  even  of  discussing  the  for- 
mation of  a  scheme  of  phonetic  writing.  Perhaps 
we  may  be  able  to  see,  although  imperfectl}',  and  by 
a  mere  glance  as  it  were,  when  the  vastness  of  the 
lubject  is  considered,  why  it  is  that  such  a  reform  as 
would  effect  the  proposed  change  is  so  very  difficult 
lis  to  be  practically  impossible. 

Mr.  Ellis  says,  in  the  first  place,  that  in  glossic 
writing  "  the  ordinary  letters  should  be  used  as  far  as 
oossible  in  their  most  ordinary  adopted  senses,  so 
that  a  passage  written  in  glossic,  when  only  represent- 
ing such  sounds  as  are  acknowledged  in  received  pro 
"aunciation,  should  be  immediately  intelligible  to  a 
Tjomic  reader  without  instruction."     This  view  of  the 


218  E VERY-DAY    EXGLISH. 

case  will  commend  itself  to  all  those  who  have  not  a 
patent  read3^-macle  system  of  forty-two  letters,  more 
or  less,  for  forty-two  sounds,  more  or  less.  Then  comea 
the  second  requisite,  which  is  this:  "  The  glossic  should 
indicate  the  precise  sound  of  every  word,  without  am- 
biguity, and  without  reference  to  anything  but  the 
sound,  so  that  sound  and  symbol  should  be  mechan- 
ically convertible."  Yes,  surely  ;  but  what  sound  ? 
This  diflSculty  has  been  discussed  before ;  but  I  think 
that  it  may  be  advantageousl}'  shown  by  the  testi- 
mony of  Mr.  Ellis  himself  that  to  indicate  the  precise 
sound  of  every  word  without  ambiguity  is  quite  im- 
possible, consistently  with  that  certainty,  uniformity, 
and  ease  of  spelling  without  the  attainment  of  which 
the  reform  in  question  would  fail  utterly  in  the  very 
purpose  for  which  it  is  agitated.  For,  if  we  can  but 
approximate,  we  may  as  well  use  one  approximation 
as  another ;  and  when  one  is  established  as  the  means 
of  communication  between  thi'ee  living  generations, 
and  in  it  are  "  embalmed  the  treasures  of  English 
thought,"  there  may  be  said  to  be  no  question  as  to 
choice. 

Passing  by  a  process  of  reform  which  compels  such 
Bpelling  as  auldhoa  for  although^  sein  for  sign,  skair- 
kroa  for  scarecrow,  euzejez  for  usages,  moesyeo  for 
monsieur,  and  sheovaalyai  for  chevalier,  althougli  the 
hard  necessity  of  such  cruel  and  ludicrous  distortion 
's  not  without  importance,  let  us  look  at  Mr.  Ellis's 
glossic  spelling  of  some  words,  with  an  eye  not  to  its 
desirability  or  practicability^  for  general  adoption,  but 
as  indicative  of  the  sound  which  he  gives  to  those 
words,  or  rather,  as  I  venture  to  say,  tiiinks  that  he 
gives  to  them.  I  find  these  spellings  of  words  which 
a  little  examination   will  unravel  :  proanunsiaishen. 


PHILOLOGISTS    AS    RKFORMHRS.  219 

ttkwizishen,  komeunikaishen,  asoashiaishenz,  hwestyen^ 
%i(jestyen,  dijikelt,  praktikel^  edeukaishenel.  Accord- 
ing, then,  to  his  own  record  of  his  speech,  Mr.  Alexan- 
der Ellis,  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  late  president 
of  the  British  Philological  Society,  etc.,  gives  to  the 
syllable  spelled  tion  the  sound  of  shen,  to  that  spelled 
ult  the  sound  of  elt,  to  that  spelled  al  the  sound  of  el, 
and  he  pronounces  suggest  surest.  Now,  with  high 
personal  regard  for  him,  in  addition  to  the  utmost  re- 
Bpect  for  his  authority  in  phonetics,  I  believe  no  such 
thing.  I  have  talked  with  him,  and  at  one  time  for 
liDurs  together,  observing  his  speech  closely,  as  I  found 
afterward  he  did  mine,  and  I  am  sure  that  he  does 
not  pronounce  as  he  says  he  does,  but  that  he  gives 
to  the  syllable  tion  a  sound  not  clearly  expressible 
with  letters,  but  something  between  shon  and  shun; 
that  in  difficult  he  gives  the  last  syllable  the  sound  of 
cult^  but  very  shortly  and  lightly  ;  and  that  in  prac- 
tical and  educational  his  sonnd  of  the  last  syllable  is 
a  very  short  and  light  al,  which  is  something  like  le 
in  the  last  syllable  of  simple,  but  is  not  el,  his  speech 
following  in  this  respect  the  usage  of  educated  peo- 
ple. What  his  pronunciation  of  suggest  is  I  shall  not 
venture  to  say ;  but  I  should  almost  as  soon  expect  to 
liear  him  say  susseed  for  sue-seed  as  svjjest  for  sug- 
jest. 

This  discrepancy  between  his  appreciation  of  his 
.  vn  speech  and  the  appreciation  of  it  by  another  ob- 
servant person  is  a  matter  of  the  very  first  importance. 
It  is  not  peculiar  to  him  and  to  me.  We  have  al- 
ready seen  (page  180)  what  discrepancy  there  was 
between  him  and  another  eminent  phonologist,  Mr, 
I3ell,  as  to  the  way  in  which  each  of  them  pronounced 
«o  simple  a  word  as  man. 


220  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Perfect  frankness  and  boldness  in  facing  difficulty 
are  marked  traits  in  Mr.  Ellis  as  a  philologist,  and  I 
believe  as  a  man  ;  and  therefore  it  is  not  surprising 
to  hear  from  him  the  following  confessions,  which, 
when  considered  in  connection  with  the  foregoing 
facts,  are  of  great  significance.  They  are  from  a  foot- 
note in  his  "  Glossic :"  "  Even  among  highly-educated 
Englishmen  marked  varieties  of  pronunciation  exist. 
....  Hence  professional  orthoepists  have  endeav- 
ored to  determine  what  pronunciations  are  correct, 
hut  they  do  not  agree  among  themselves^  and  they  have 
vainly  striven  after  principle s^  The  italic  emphasis 
is  mine.  This  life-long  advocate  of  phonetic  spell- 
ing, or  I  should  rather  say  this  honest  seeker  after  a 
phonetic  S3'stem,  then  makes  the  following  remarka- 
ble admission  :  "  Any  system  of  notation  for  sounds 
should  enable  us  to  represent  all  the  prevalent  vari- 
eties, and  each  person  shoidd  write  what  he  thinks 
best."  That  this  does  not  apply  to  glossic  writing  as 
a  mere  record  for  phonetic  purposes  is  made  certain 
by  his  subsequent  reference  to  his  own  glossic  writ- 
ing of  nature,  failure,  and  verdure,  —  naiteur,faileur, 
and  verdeur,  —  which  he  says  "  many  might  write 
naicher,  failyer,  and  verjer.  Or,"  he  adds,  "  writers 
might  even  object  to  the  use  of  r  at  all  after  aa,  au, 
u,  and  write  naichu,  failyu,  vu-ju,  as  well  as  deeu, 
paat,  laud,  klaak,  for  "  —  what  does  the  reader  think  ? 
—  "for  deer,  part,  lord,  and  clerk.'"  lie  does  not 
shirk  the  consequences,  but  adds,  "  And  they  ought 
to  do  so,  if  they  speak  so.  There  is  no  reason  why 
Buch  usages,  although  stigmatized  now,  should  not 
become  fashionable  a  century  hence."  The  history 
of  our  language  shows  that  the  truth  of  this  admis- 
iBion  cannot  be  disputed  ;    and  after  this  somewhat 


PHILOLOGISTS   AS   REFORMERS.  221 

amazing  indication  of  the  approach  to  ease  and  uni- 
formity of  spelling  attainable  by  the  phonetic  road 
on  the  part  of  its  oldest  and  ablest  seeker  and  advo- 
cate, I  think  that  we  may  drop  this  part  of  our  sub- 
ject. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE    IITVENTION    OF    PRINTING  :  ITS    EFFECT   UPON 
ENGLISH   SPELLING. 

Some  reasons  have  lately  been  given  for  the  exist- 
ence of  the  present  English  orthography,  and  some  to 
justify  its  extinction,  which  I  have  not  thus  far  had 
occasion  to  consider,  but  which  are  not  less  important 
or  less  interesting  than  those  which  have  already 
been  remarked  upon.^  These  I  sliall  examine  in  the 
present  chapter  and  in  those  which  follow  it  in  the 
present  division  of  this  book. 

First  as  to  the  origin  of  English  orthography  :  one 
of  the  great  causes,  if  not  the  chief  cause,  of  that 
dreadful  condition  of  English  spelling  over  which  the 
phonetists  weep  and  wail  and  wring  their  philolog- 
ical hands,  they  fuid  in  the  introduction  of  the  art  of 
printing  into  England.  As  to  this,  it  is  said,  "  The 
importance  of  its  influence  in  this  respect  cannot 
well  be  overstated.  Any  confusion  which  might  be- 
fore have  existed  in  spelling  became  from  this  time 
worse  confounded.  Upon  the  inti'oduction  of  print- 
ing, English  orthography  entered  into  tliat  realm  of 
Cliaos  and  old  Night  in  which  it  has  ever  since  been 
loundering."  My  observation  has  led  me  to  an  en« 
tirely  different  conclusion,  which  is  that  at'  first 
printing  had  no  effect  whatever  upon  English  spell- 
jig,  and  tliat  the  influence  whicli  the  printing-oifice 

^  See  the  papers  in  Scribne7-'s  Magazine,  iiK'iitioned  before. 


THE   INVENTION    OF    PRINTING.  223 

very  gradually  exerted  upon  spelling  during  the 
progress  of  centuries  was  toward  regularity  and  uni- 
formity. Early  printing  is  more  regular  in  its  or- 
thography than  contemporary  manuscript  is,  and  the 
printing-oflBce  slowly  and  gradually  (if  that  may 
be  called  gradual  which  is  irregular  and  fitful  in 
its  course)  brought  about  the  present  orthography, 
which  has  at  least  this  value,  that  it  is  common  to  all 
the  millions  of  the  English-speaking  peoples.  If  any 
student  of  lansruaoe  who  has  imbibed  this  notion 
about  the  baneful  influence  of  printing  upon  spelling 
will  do  as  I  have  done,  and  compare  a  very  early 
printed  book  —  for  example,  Caxton's  "  Game  and 
Playe  of  the  Chesse,"  or  "  Dictes  and  Sayengis  of 
the  Philosophirs,"  fac-similes  of  which  are  accessible 
—  with  contemporary  manuscript  or  its  typographical 
equivalent,  say  the  "  Paston  Letters  "  from  No.  700 
downward,  he  will  find  so  much  less  irregularity  in 
the  printer's  work  than  in  the  writer's,  and  on  fur- 
ther research  of  the  same  kind  he  will  find  that 
irregularity  diminish  so  much  more  perceptibly  in 
the  former  than  in  the  latter,  that  I  am  sure  that  he 
will  see  reason  to  modify,  if  not  entirely  to  change, 
his  opinion.  For  example,  in  one  single  letter,  writ- 
ten by  Edmund  Paston  (No.  933,  A.  D.  1492), 
wife  is  spelled  first  wyveffe,  then  wyve,  then  wyffe, 
and  finally  wyffve  ;  but  good  Margaret  Paston,  writ- 
ing to  her  husband,  subscribes  herself,  "  Your  ^//,  M. 
P."  (No.  809,  A.  D.  1477).  The  good  lady  (who  for 
her  true  womanliness  and  perfect  wifehood  deserves 
a  biography)  was  phonetic  with  a  vengeance.  Now 
the  variation  and  irregularity  exhibited  in  these 
words  is  characteristic  of  this  correspondence,  and  I 
io  not  hesitate  to  say,  after  examination,  that,  great 


224  E VERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

as  are  tlie  irregularities  of  spelling  in  English  books 
printed  at  that  time,  they  are  less  than  those  of  exist- 
ing English  manuscripts  contemporarj^  with  them, 
and  that  the  like  relation  of  writing  and  printing 
prevails  througli  the  subsequent  two  centuries,  at  the 
close  of  which  English  spelling  became  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  what  it  is  now. 

It  is  also  not  uncommonly  believed  by  tliose  who 
are  afflicted  with  anxiety  on  the  subject  of  English 
Bpelling,  and  it  has  been  asserted  by  some  of  them, 
that  its  old-time  irregularities,  from  which  the  print- 
ers selected  the  forms  which  were  finally  adopted 
for  general  use,  represented  in  most  cases  actual  dif- 
ferences of  pronunciation.  And  the  notion  is  plaus- 
ible,—  one  of  those  that  we  call  natural.  But  I  am 
sure  that  it  will  not  bear  to  be  confronted  with  the 
facts.  It  ignores  the  fact,  among  others,  that  the 
same  writer  at  the  same  time  spelled  a  word  in  vari- 
ous ways.  For  example,  did  Edmund  Fasten,  in  the 
letter  cited  above,  indicate  by  his  spelling  four  differ- 
ent ways  of  pronouncing  wife  ?  Did  Margaret  Fas- 
ton,  writing  to  her  husband  (No.  529,  September  27, 
1459),  indicate  a  difference  of  pronunciation  by  writ- 
ing fellowship  feleschipp  in  one  line  and  felech//p  a 
few  lines  below,  by  spelling  sheriff  schreve,  and  a  few 
lines  after  schryf ;  and  must  we  believe  that  she  pro- 
nounced shall  in  three  different  ways  in  the  course 
of  five  minutes,  because  within  little  more  than  as 
many  lines  she  spells  it  challe,  choulle,  and  cholle? 
It  is  not  uncommon  to  find  the  same  writer  in  long- 
past  days  spelling  ded,  dedde^  and  dead,  or  did  and 
dydde,  within  a  few  lines  ;  and  in  tlie  first  act  ot 
''Hamlet"  the  following  variations  in  spelling  ap* 
pear  in  the  old  copies :  chapes  shapes,  solemb  solemne 


THE    INVENTION   OF    PRINTING.  225 

tea8on  ceasen,  cliff  cleef^  arture  'n-tirc  (artery),  sin- 
now8  sinnezvs.  The  old  copies  of  Chaucer  present 
eaw  in  a  dozen  different  but  contemporary  spellings : 
sawh,  sauh,  smvhe,  saugh,  sagh,  say,  seigh,  segh,  sigh, 
eihe,  sy,  sie ;  and  there  are  yet  others.  The  often- 
used  monosyllable  been  appears  in  all  the  following 
different  forms  in  books  printed  in  London  within 
twenty-five  years  of  each  other,  and  in  the  Eliza 
bethan  period  :  ben,  betie,  been,  beene,  6m,  bine,  byn , 
byne,  bynne.^ 

1  In  illustration  of  some  of  these  irregularities  and  apparent  inconsist- 
encies in  tlie  same  writer,  or  in  co-working  writers,  see  the  following 
examples:  — 

"  What,  lingering  still 
About  this  paltry  town.     Hadst  thou  bin  rulde 
By  my  advice,  thou  hadst  at  this  time  bene 
A  gallant  courtyer." 

(Chapman,  All  Fooles,  a.  d.  1605,  page  156,  ed.  1873.", 

[Within  a  few  lines.]  '"My  wings  would  have  6ee7j  dipt Yoi^- and 

I  have  6m  the  best  benefactors  to  the  ragged  Tegimeut  of  poets I 

believe  there  hath  bin  more  impressions  of  severall  kinds  of  lamentable 

ballads,  etc I  am  sure  I  know  not  so,  for  had  not  my  wings  beene 

long."     (Times  Alterations,  1641,  Apud  Wallington,  11.,  336.) 

"  These  two  bred  this  unknowne  offence 
I  wo'd  they  had  bine^ 

(Wit  Kestored,  1658,  page  147.) 
"  Had  he  hetne  thee  or  of  they  fatal  tribe." 

(The  same,  page  183.) 
"  'T  had  bin  enough  for  that  poor  virgin's  sonne 
That  was  incarnate." 

(The  same,  page  186.) 
"  I  wish  the  world  had  njt  this  pamphlet  scene. 
Or  having  view'd  it,  it  had  faulty  been." 

(The  same,  page  2G7.) 
Wallis,  the  Oxford  professor,  says  that  the  present  pronunciation  of  his 
was  not  tolerated  by  good  speakers  in  1653,  and  that  the  same  is  true  of 
iin  for  been,  although  both  were  sometimes  heard.  He  saj's  (translating 
oini)  that  we  hear  "/u'«  for  hees  by  the  same  error  by  which  sometimes,  or 
rarely  {'  nonnunquam''),  we  hear  bin  (or  been,  both  of  which  are  against  the 
unalogy  of  the  language."  This  shows,  not  that  the  (spelling  bin  represented 
I  sound  rhyming  with  our  Jdn  and  thin,  but  that  that  spelling  represented 
tie  vowel  sound  of  ee,  which  made  bin  rhyme  with  our  keen,  and  that  the 
15 


226  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Such  variations  in  spelling  ai-e  not  records  of  dif- 
ferences in  pronunciation ;  tbey  are  merely  evidence 
of  a  prevailing  irregularity,  the  consequence  of  care- 
lessness and  nncertainty.  But  although  the  opinion 
that  these  differences  in  the  written  signs  of  words 
have  any  plionetic  signification  seems  to  me  entirely 
untenable,  this  is  true :  that  variations  in  spelling, 
when  they  are  found  in  the  manuscript  of  writers 
living  in  various  parts  of  England,  are  generally  rec- 
ords of  dialectic  variations  in  speech. 

Dialectic  variations  are,  however,  not  those  which 
the  holders  of  the  opinion  just  referred  to  have  in 
mind.  For  example,  a  recent  advocate  of  phonetic 
reform  says,  "  The  distinguishing  trait  of  the  ancient 
spelling  was  that  it  made  an  effort  to  represent  the 
ancient  pronunciation,  and  that  to  attain  that  end  it 
had  no  hesitation  about  sacrificing  uniformity ; "  and 
he  adds  that,  "  consequently,  when  writers  attempted 
to  represent  the  spoken  sound,  they  differed  widely  in 
the  orthography  because  there  was  often  a  wide  differ- 
ence in  the  orthoepy."  I  have  made  the  word  "  be- 
cause "  emphatic  for  the  reason  that  in  it  alone  inheres 
the  entirely  misleading  part  of  this  whole  statement. 
It  is  true,  to  a  certain  degree,  that  there  was  in  an- 
cient spelling  an  effort  to  represent  pronunciation  ; 
it  is  true  that  the  writers  of  old  differed  widely  in 
their  use  of  letters ;  and  it  is  true  that  there  was 
often  a  wide  difference  in  their  pronunciation.  But 
it  is  not  true  that  they  differed  in  their  spelling  be- 
cause they  differed  in  their  pronunciation.     For  one 

(or  ee)  in  both  his  and  bin  was  by  some  careless  speakers  sounded  with 
the  vowel  sound  oC  kin.  No  wonder;  for  in  all  language  there  is  nc 
transition  so  easj',  none  so  difficult  to  avoid,  as  that  from  modern  ee  t« 
modern  short  i.  In  fact,  the  two  sounds  in  rapid  speech  are  almost  indi» 
lingttisbable.    And  see  the  foot-note  on  page  18. 


THE   INVENTION   OF   PRINTING.  227 

person  would,  in  the  course  of  tlie  writing  of  a  single 
brief  letter,  differ  as  much  from  himself  or  herself  as 
half  a  dozen  others  would  differ  from  each  other  in 
spelling  the  same  words.  Of  this  variation  I  have 
already  given  a  few  examples,  which  make  the  point 
plain  beyond  misapprehension  ;  and,  were  it  neces- 
sary  to  prove  the  fact  in  question,  they  might  be 
easily  multiplied  by  ten  thousand.  The  signilicance 
of  the  fact  cannot  be  misapprehended.  One  person 
could  not  have  pronounced  a  word,  dialectically  or 
not,  in  two  or  three  or  four  different  ways  at  the 
same  time. 

Old-time  English  spelling,  in  its  effort  to  represent 
pronunciation,  failed  of  uniformity,  simply  because 
no  uniform  system  of  English  spelling  had  yet  been 
elaborated  and  adopted.  Uniformity  was  not  sacri- 
ficed, because  uniformity  was  unknown.  The  printers 
and  proof-readers,  working  together  with  the  men  of 
letters,  had  not  yet  done  their  part  in  forming  our 
written  language.  There  was  no  English  orthogra- 
phy before  the  Elizabethan  period;  at  wliich  time 
our  present  system  began  to  take  shape,  and  to  assert 
for  itself  an  authority  which  it  did  not  absolutely  at- 
tain until  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
As  early  as  A.  D.  1604,  Middleton,  in  the  "  Address 
to  the  Reader,"  prefixed  to  "Father  Hubburd's  Tale," 
wrote,  "  I  never  wished  this  book  better  fortune 
Lhan  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  true-spelling  printer 
and  an  honest-minded  book-seller."  Humphrey  King, 
in  the  preface  to  his  "  Halfe  Pennyworth  of  Wit," 
published  in  the  year  1613,  says  of  himself,  "  I  am  a 
very  bad  writer  of  orthography,  and  can  scarce  spell 
my  ahcie  if  it  were  laid  before  me.  The  printer  may 
Velpe  me  to  deliver  to  you  true  English  ;  but  as  I  ara 


228  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

a  true  man  to  my  God  and  my  King  he  linds  it  not  in 
my  coppy."  Spelling,  then,  was  irregular,  but  not 
entirely  so;  system  had  begun  to  prevail ;  there  were 
printers  who  were  more  "true-spelling"  than  others, 
and  the  printing-office,  instead  of  bringing  written 
English  to  chaos,  might  be  trusted  to  do  something 
to  correct  mistakes  made  by  a  careless  or  an  uned- 
ucated writer. 

In  support  of  the  position  that  variations  in  spell- 
ing were  caused  by  variations  in  pronunciation,  there 
have  been  brought  forward  certain  examples  which 
it  may  be  well  to  consider.  The  first  of  these  is 
catchy  which  is  pronounced  by  many  ignorant  or  care- 
less speakers  ketch.  We  are  gravely  told  that  "  this 
word  must  have  been  pronounced  the  same  way  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  for  occasionally  it  can  be  found 
with  the  spelling  ketch.''''  This  is  worthy  of  remark 
only  because  of  the  strange  selection  of  this  word  as 
an  illustrative  example,  and  because  of  the  terms  in 
which  its  function  is  set  forth.  For  ketch  was  the 
general  pronunciation  of  the  word  in  the  seventeenth 
as  well  as  in  the  sixteenth  century.  It  was  taken  to 
Ireland  by  the  Englishmen  who  went  there  in  the 
days  of  Elizabeth  and  James  and  Charles  and  the 
Commonwealth ;  and  it  is  mentioned  by  Sheridan,  at 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  among  the  pro- 
nunciations in  which  the  "  well-educated  natives  of 
Ireland  "  differ  from  those  of  England.  The  occa- 
sional spelling  ketch  is  evidence,  not  that  some  per- 
sons pronounced  the  word  catch  and  some  others 
ketch^  but  that  ketch  was  the  common,  if  not  the  uni- 
versal, pronunciation  of  catch,  and  this  not  only  in  the 
aixteenth  century,  but  in  the  seventeenth.  Isaak 
Walton,  in  the  first  edition  of  his  "Compleat  Angler,' 


THE   INVENTION   OF    PRINTING.  229 

1653,  spells  Tcetch ;  but  the  inference  that  this  rep- 
resents a  pronunciation  peculiar  to  him  or  to  his 
Bocial  circle,  or  one  in  any  way  different  from  that 
in  vogue  at  the  time,  is  prevented  by  his  more  fre 
quent  use  of  the  normal  form  catch. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE     THEORY    OF     COMPEOMISE     BETWEEN     SOUNB 
AND    SIGN:     RESTORATION  OF    SILENT    LETTERS. 

Upon  the  differences  which  appear  in  the  spelling 
of  the  same  word  in  the  written  and  printed  English 
of  days  long  past,  and  upon  the  difference  of  sound 
assumed  to  have  been  indicated  by  that  variation  in 
visible  form,  there  has  been  founded  a  theory  to  ac- 
count for  the  failure  of  modern  English  orthography 
to  indicate  the  sounds  of  words  exactly.  This  theory 
is  that  "  we  have  in  modern  English  not  unfrequently 
retained  the  spelling  of  the  one  form  and  the  pro- 
nunciation of  the  other,"  or,  as  it  has  been  otherwise 
expressed,  "  Modern  English  gets  rid  of  any  difficulty 
in  the  choice  [between  different  forms]  by  selecting 
one  form  to  denote  the  spelling,  and  the  other  to  de- 
note the  pronunciation." 

In  illustration  and  in  support  of  this  theory  cer- 
tain words  supposed,  and  indeed  asserted,  to  be 
strongly  characteristic  have  been  put  forth  as  exam- 
ples. The  first  of  these  is  (for  the  two  are  one)  Eng- 
lish and  England,  as  to  which  it  is  said  tliat  "  perhaps 
no  better  example  can  be  given  "  of  the  purposed 
divarication  in  question.  The  spelling  is  English 
and  England.^  and  the  authorized  pronunciation 'given 
in  the  dictionaries  is  ing-glish  and  ing-gland.  "  How," 
it  is  asked,  "did  this  divergence  come  about?  "  and 
the  question  is  glibly  answered  thus  :  "  To  the  his. 
torical  student  of  our   tongue  the  answer  is  by  nc 


COMPROMISE    BETWEEN   SOUND    AND    SIGX.  231 

means  a  difficult  one.  In  the  early  speech  there  were 
two  waj^s  of  writing  the  words,  corresponding  pre- 
cisely, without  doubt,  to  the  two  waj^s  of  pronouncing 
them."  Passages  are  then  quoted  from  the  "  Cursor 
Mundi,"  from  Barbour,  and  from  Thomas  of  Ersel- 
doune,  in  which  the  forms  Inglis,  Inglysche.,  and  Ing- 
land  occur,  and  these  are  contrasted  with  Chaucer's 
nearly  contemporary  Englissh.  Now  that  instances 
of  both  spellings  are  numerous  in  our  early  writers  is 
perfectly  true.  But  that  a  professed  philologist,  who 
is  instructing  his  readers  in  the  history  of  English 
speech  and  spelling,  should  conclude  that  therefore 
there  were  two  pronunciations  of  the  word,  is  amaz- 
ing. He  must  have  momentarily  forgotten  that  in 
the  time  of  Chaucer,  and  for  centuries  afterward,  the 
English  i  represented  our  modern  sound  of  ee^  and 
that  the  pronunciation  of  Inglis  and  Ingland  from  the 
fourteenth  century  —  the  date  of  his  examples  —  to 
the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  would  be  repre- 
sented in  our  orthography  by  Eenglees  and  JEenglond, 
and  that  the  sound  of  e  varied  at  the  same  time,  hav- 
ing sometimes  its  modern  sound,  and  at  others  that 
of  ag.  The  historical  course  of  the  pronunciation  of 
the  first  two  syllables  of  the  words  in  question  seems 
to  have  been  ahngle,  angle,  aingle,  eengle.  As  to  the 
early  written  forms  of  the  word,  Venerable  Bede  has 
Angle  ("Angli");  King  Alfred,  Ongel  ("ongel- 
t)eode")  and  JEnglise ;  Bishop  ^lirio,  Angle  ("  An- 
glorum  "),  JEnglise,  and  Englisry  ("  Engliscre  spras- 
ce ") ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  Englise  and 
Engleland ;  Layaraon's  Brut,  Engle,  Engelo7id,  and 
Engleneland  ;  the  Ormulum,  Eiuiglissh  ;  Henry  III. 's 
proclamation,  A.  D.  1258,  Engleneloande  (precisely, 
twice)  ;    Robert  of  Glouc^ester,  Englisse    and  Enge- 


232  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

lond;  Trevisa  (translation  of  Ralph  Higdeii),  Unc^ 
lische  and  England.  The  introduction  of  the  form 
Inglis  and  Ingland^  which  appears  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  seems  to  have  been  due  to  the  influence  of 
the  Norman  French  upon  the  then  much-mixed  Eng- 
lish language.  This  form  marks  strongly  the  incom- 
ing of  the  pronunciation  JSenglish,  which  has  prevailed 
for  at  least  four  centuries.  As  to  its  prevalence  more 
than  two  centuries  ago,  we  have  the  direct  testimony 
of  Charles  Butler,  in  his  Grammar,  1633,  to  this  ef- 
fect:  '''' Eengland  is  vulgarly  written  England,  hut 
always  sounded  Ecngland.^^  Two  other  orthoepists 
of  the  seventeenth  century  give  the  same  testimony, 
as  may  be  seen  in  Ellis's  great  work  on  the  history 
of  English  pronunciation  (page  1007).  As  the  pro- 
nunciation was  in  Chaucer's  time  and  in  Butler's,  so 
it  is  to  this  day,  as  any  observant  person  will  see  by 
Bpeaking  with  the  rapidity  of  ordinary  speech  a  sen- 
tence in  which  Eengland  occurs.  It  will  become  at 
once  apparent  that  without  special  and  deliberate  ef- 
fort it  is  impossible  to  pronounce  Eengland  otherwise 
than  Ingland.  Therefore,  the  conclusion  that  "  here 
was  a  genuine  difference  in  the  sound  conveyed  to 
the  ear,  which  naturally  found  expression  in  a  differ- 
ence of  orthography,"  is  not  warranted,  but  the  re- 
verse. 

We  now  come  to  what  is  set  forth  as  "  the  most 
suggestive  illustration  "  that  could  be  produced  to 
show  that  in  modern  English  we  have  not  unfre- 
quently  "  retained  the  spelling  of  the  one  form  and 
the  pronunciation  of  the  other."  This  is  "  the  word 
colonel.''''  Perhaps  we  ought  not  to  be  surprised  that 
even  a  philologist  should  take  up  this  word  as  an  il 
lustration  of  phonetic  and  orthographic  disagreement 


COMPROMISE   BETWEEN    SOUND    AND    SIGN.  233 

in  the  past,  and  a  ground  of  argument  for  phonetic 
spelling  reform  in  the  present ;  for  it  is  an  enticing 
word.  Its  first  part  is  spelled  colo,  and  is  pronounced 
cur ;  and  there  is  a  form  of  it  known  to  English  lit- 
erature as  coronet  and  cornel.  What  wonder,  then, 
that  a  phonetic  reformer  who  chose  been  and  England 
as  his  examples  to  the  same  effect  should  be  led  very 
specifically  to  declare  that  there  "  was  an  early  and 
wide-spread  use  of  the  particular  pronunciation  \_cur- 
ner\  which  has  now  become  universal,"  and  that 
when  "  the  tendency  toward  a  fixed  and  unvarying 
orthography  became  more  and  more  decided,  .... 
the  same  blundering  compromise  was  made ;  the  pro- 
nunciation of  the  one  form  [curneV]  had  become  gen- 
eral, and  was  necessarily  retained,  but  along  with  it 
was  retained  the  spelling  [colonel^  of  the  other !  " 
Unfortunately  for  the  argument  grounded  upon  it, 
this  assertion  is  not  true.  There  was  no  early  and 
wide-spread  adoption  of  the  pronunciation  in  ques- 
tion ;  nor,  when  a  fixed  orthography  was  adopted, 
was  that  pronunciation  retained  along  with  the  in- 
congruous spelling. 

The  history  of  this  word  is  somewhat  interesting. 
Its  pronunciation  in  Walker's  day  (the  same  as  now) 
seemed  to  that  orthoepist  "  one  of  those  gross  irreg- 
ularities which  must  be  given  up  as  incorrigible." 
Colonel  is  merely  the  English  form  of  the  Italian 
colonello^  which  is  itself  a  diminutive  of  eolonna,  a 
column,  and  means,  therefore,  a  little  column.  The 
little  column  or  company  at  the  head  of  a  regiment 
was  called  colonello,  which  name  was  naturally  trans- 
ferred to  the  leader  of  the  column,  that  is,  the  com- 
inander  of  the  regiment.  From  the  Italian  language 
his  name  for  that  officer  went,  in  the  sixteenth  cent- 


234  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

ury,  into  the  Spanish  and  the  French  hinguages,  and 
also  into  the  English.  In  the  Spanish  language  it 
became  coronet,  and  so  remains.  The  change  of  ^  to  r 
is  a  common  one  in  language,  ancient  and  modern, 
the  world  over. 

The  first  appearance  of  the  title  in  our  language 
is  in  the  form  coronet,  which  is  found  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  use  of  this  form 
of  the  word  at  that  time  is  due  to  the  predominance 
of  Spanish  military  power,  and  to  the  fact  that  Eng- 
lish military  officers  were  frequently  brought  into 
relations  of  some  sort  with  those  of  Spain.  The  word 
having  been  used  by  some  Englishmen  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century  in  the  form  coronet,  it 
was  a  plausible  and  enticing  inference  that  that  pro- 
nunciation prevailed  then,  remained  in  vogue  there- 
after, and  came  down  to  us  from  that,  time,  accom- 
panying the  written  form  cotonel.  That  this  is  a 
mistake  I  shall  proceed  to  show. 

The  form  coronet  seems  to  have  been  almost  con- 
fined to  military  writers  and  a  few  others,  and  soon 
to  have  disappeared  from  common  writing  and  from 
common  speech,  if  it  ever  obtained  a  foot-hold  in  the 
latter,  which  I  am  inclined  to  doubt.  The  earliest 
use  of  the  word  in  literature  of  which,  until  recently, 
I  had  a  memorandum  is  in  Thomas  Dekker's  comedy, 
"  The  Shoe-maker's  Holiday,"  which  was  written  in 
1599,  and  published  in  the  following  year.  Tiiis  is  a 
little  earlier  than  that  cited  by  Skeat  in  his  Etynn^- 
logical  Dictionary  from  Holland's  "  Pliny,"  IGOl, 
where  it  appears  as  coronet.  Examples  some  ten 
years  earlier  have  been  cited,  in  the  form  coronet, 
out  they  are  found  in  the  militai-y  correspondence  of 
the  Earl  of  Leicester,  then  in  command  of  the  Eng 


COMPROMISE   BETWEEN   SOUND   AND   SIGN.  235 

lish  forces  serving  in  the  Netherlands  against  the 
Spaniards,  who  used  the  form  coronet^  and  from 
whom  the  earl  doubtless  got  the  new  title.  Spenser, 
however,  used  this  word  in  his  "  View  of  the  Present 
State  of  Ireland,"  which  was  written  in  1595,  but  re- 
mained unpublished  until  1633.  Dr.  Johnson,  citing 
Spenser  as  what  is  strangely  called  "  authority  "  for 
the  use  of  the  word,  represents  him  as  vising  it  in  the 
form  colonel^  and  Dr.  Latham  does  the  same,  merely, 
it  is  to  be  supposed,  adopting  Johnson's  quotation. 
This,  however,  is  incorrect,  as  I  found  on  a  recent 
reading  of  Spenser's  "View."  He  spells  the  word 
coronel,  not  only  in  the  passage  quoted  by  Johnson, 
but  in  every  other  in  which  I  met  with  it.^  This  is 
probably  the  earliest  appearance  of  the  word  in  our 
literature  in  any  form.  It  antedates  by  four  years 
the  passage  in  Dekker,  which,  however,  is  interest- 
ing, because  it  presents  both  forms  of  the  word  used 
by  the  same  writer  at  the  same  time.  It  will  be  seen 
that  in  the  first  example  the  word  must  be  spoken  as 
a  trisyllable  for  the  rhythm's  sake  :  — 

"  I  thanke  his  grace  he  hath  appointed  him 
Chief  colonell  of  all  those  companies 
Mustred  in  London  and  tlie  shires  about." 

(The  Shoe-maker's  Holiday,  1600,  Act  I.,  Scene  1.) 

"Here  be  the  cavaliers  and  the  coronets,  master." 

(The  same,  Act  I.,  Scene  1.) 

■  "And  afterwardes  theyr  coronell,  named  Don  Sebastian,  came  foorthe 
U  intreate  that  they  might  parte  with  theyr  amies  like  souldioura,"  etc. 

•'Whereupon  the  sayd  coronel  did  absolutely  yeeld  himselfe  and  the 
forte,"  etc. 

"  But  the  cheifest  helpe  for  prevention  hereof  must  be  the  care  of  th« 
txironel  that  hath  the  government  of  all  his  garrison." 

"But  what  say  you  of  the  coronell  f  what  aut'noritye  thinke  you  meete 
to  give  him?  " 

"  In  all  which  the  greate  discretion  and  uprightness  of  the  corone,  hini- 
letf  is  to  be  the  cheifest  stay,"  eto.     (Pagen  656,  657,  ed.  Morris.) 


236  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

The  latter  form  both  in  spoken  and  in  written  lan- 
guage seems  to  have  gradually,  but  quickly,  passed 
out  of  use. 

That  colonel  was  pronounced  in  three  syllables  in 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  two  well-worn 
examples  have  been  relied  upon  as  evidence ;  this 
line  from  one  of  Milton's  sonnets  :  — 

"  Captain  or  Colonel  or  knight  in  arms  ;  " 

and  the  following  couplet  from  Butler's  "  Hudi- 
bras  :  "  — 

"Then  did  Sir  Knight  abandon  dwelling, 
And  out  he  rode  a  colonelling." 

In  both  of  these  passages  the  measure  requires,  and 
in  the  second  both  the  measure  and  the  rliyme  require, 
the  pronunciation  of  colonel  in  three  syllables,  and  it 
is  admitted  that  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
the  I  when  written  was  then  sounded  as  if  it  were  r. 
But  if  colonel  were  then  pronounced  as  it  is  written, 
where  is  the  evidence  in  this  word  of  that  "  blunder- 
ing compromise  "  between  sound  and  spelling  upon 
which  the  philological  reformers  insist  so  sti-ongly? 
And  the  word  having  then  been  pronounced  in  three 
syllables,  with  the  first  as  col,  where  is  the  evidence 
of  "that  permutation  of  I  and  r  .  .  .  .  at  the  time  of 
its  introduction  "  into  English  and  French  to  which 
its  present  pronunciation  has  been  so  confidently 
attributed?  When,  indeed,  since  speech  was  first 
used  by  man,  was  there  not  a  change  of  I  to  r,  and 
in  what  language,  supposing,  always,  that  there 
vas  an  I  and  an  r  to  interchange  ?  ^ 

1  The  inability  of  the  Chinese  to  pronounce  r  and  their  substitution  of  { 
lor  it,  and  the  converse  inability  of  the  Japanese  to  pronounce  I,  for  which 
they  ase  r,  I  have  already  remarked  upon  (page  47).  Wallis  tells  us  that 
the  American  Indians  in  New  England  (a.  d.  1G56)  could  pronounce  nei' 
*her  {  nor  r,  so  that  for  lobster  they  said  nobstan:  "  Literas  L  et  B  pro 


COMPROMISE   BETWEEN   SOUND    AND   SIGN.  237 

There  is  good  reason  why  the  passages  from  Mil- 
ton's sonnet  and  from  "  Hudibras "  should  have 
been  much  used  and  relied  upon ;  for  the  word  is 
not  a  common  one  in  literature  before  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  to  have  any  determining  power  as  to  its 
own  pronunciation  it  must  be  found  in  well-measured 
verse.  It  does  not  occur  in  Shakespeare  (nor  does  it 
in  the  Bible),  although  we  have  there  general^  captain, 
lieutenant,  and  ensign  ("ancient").  The  following 
passages  from  writers  of  the  Elizabethan  period  have 
a  very  direct  bearing  upon  the  pronunciation  of  the 
word.  In  Middleton's  play,  "A  Fair  Quarrel,"  there 
is  a  personage  called  simply  the  Colonel,  and  that  he 
was  called  col-o-nel,  and  not  cornel,  seems  plain  :  — 

—  "  That  being  young, 
Should  have  an  anger  more  inclined  to  courage 
And  moderation  than  the  Colonel.^' 

(Act  I.,  Scene  1.) 

"  Consider  then  the  man,  the  Colonel.'''' 

(Act  II.,  Scene  1.) 

"  And  with  that  reverence  I  receive  the  gift 
As  it  was  sent  me,  worthy  Colonel.'^ 

(Act  IV.,  Scene  3.) 

Massinger  furnishes  the  following  examples  in 
|.»oint :  — 

"  Two  long  hours  since 
The  Colonels,  Commissioners,  and  Captains 
To  pay  him  all  the  rites,"  etc. 

(The  Unnatural  Combat,  1615,  Act  III.,  Scene  2.) 

"  Desert  in  these  days  ! 
Desert  may  make  a  Sergeant  to  a  Colonel, 
And  it  may  hinder  him  from  rising  higher." 

(The  Maid  of  Honor,  Act  III.,  Scene  1.) 

"  His  Colonel  looks  finely  like  a  drover 
That  hath  a  Winter  laid  perdue  in  the  rain." 

(The  Fatal  Dowry,  Act  II.,  Scene  2.) 

nuniJare  non  posse,  sed  ipsorum  loco  JV  substituere  ;  adeoque  Nohstan 
Ulcere  pro  Lobstar."  This  seems  to  confirm  the  view  of  the  lateness  ol 
me  appearance  of  these  consonants  in  speech  whicn  is  taken  in  Chapter  III 


238  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

"Nay,  to  provoke  you,  Sir,  to  call  to  account 
This  Colonel  lioinoiit,  for  the  foul  wrong,"  etc. 

(The  same,  Act  IV.,  Scene  1.) 
"And,  as  I  said,  Meg,  when  this  gull  disturb'd  us, 
This  honorable  lord,  this  Colonel.'''' 

(A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  Act  III.,  Scene  2.) 

I  liave  many  more  illustrations  of  this  kind  at 
hand,  but  I  forbeai-  to  wear}'  my  parisliioners,  in  this 
way,  any  further.  These  passages  from  two  writers 
born  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  — 
Middleton  about  1570  and  Massinger  in  1584,  —  the 
latter  of  whom  continued  to  write  in  the  time  of 
Charles  I.  and  the  Commonwealth,  are  sufficient  evi- 
dence, it  would  seem,  that  the  form  colonel  prevailed 
in  England  from  a  time  soon  after  the  first  introduc- 
tion of  the  word  to  the  time  of  Milton.  From  him 
we  pass  to  the  contemporaries  of  Butler  ;  and  their 
pronunciation  (illustrated  above)  brings  us  down  to 
the  time  of  James  II.  It  is  proper,  however,  to  say 
that  in  the  writings  of  the  poets  of  the  earlier  of 
these  periods  there  are  passages  which  show  that  the 
word  was  occasionally  contracted  by  them  into  two 
syllables.  But,  in  the  first  place,  what  word  would 
not  the  poets  of  that  period  contract?  And,  next, 
the  question  is  to  be  settled  whether  the  contracted 
form  was  colnel  or  cornel.  There  is  evidence  of 
weight  that  it  was  the  former. 

The  dramatist  Farquhar,  who  was  born  in  the 
•»  eign  of  Charles  II.,  and  who  wrote  in  the  reigns  of 
William  and  Mary  and  of  Queen  Anne,  has  in  hifs 
comedy,  "  Sir  Harry  Wildair,"  a  personage  named 
Colonel  Stannard.  Now,  this  personage's  title  is 
nbbreviated  by  most  of  the  speakers.  Some  of  them 
Bpeak  to  him  or  of  him  by  his  full  title,  but  by  most 
of  them    it    is    clipped,  and  then   it   is   written   not 


COMPROMISE   BETWEEN   SOUND    AND   SIGN.  239 

merely  Col^  with  one  Z,  but  with  two,  Coll^  unmis- 
takable evidence  of  the  pronunciation.  Thus  :  "  Ay, 
Bays  a  sneering  coxcomb,  the  Coll.  has  made  his 
fortune  with  a  witness."  (Page  4,  ed.  1711.) 
"  '  Han't  the  ColL  a  name  of  his  own  ?  '  '  Well,  then, 
the  Coll.''  "  (The  same,  page  12.)  "  Lard,  Lard, 
Coll.  !  what  a  room  have  you  made  here  with  your 
dirty  feet !  "  (The  same,  page  13.)  "  I  'm  a  pretty 
gentleman.  —  Coll..,  where 's  your  wife  ?  "  (The  same, 
page  16.)  I  forbear  to  quote  any  others,  and  will  only 
say  that  I  have  about  a  score  more  examples  from 
this  play.  These  speeches,  it  is  to  be  remarked,  are 
made  by  the  commoner  personages  of  the  play  ;  but 
when  the  elegant  Sir  Harry  Wildair  addresses  the 
Colonel,  he  gives  him  his  full  title,  and  that  is 
spelled,  it  should  be  also  noted,  not  with  one  Z,  but 
with  two.  "  Wildair.  — What  d'  ye  think  of  the  ghost 
now,  Collonel?  Is  it  not  a  very  loving  ghost?" 
(Ed.  1711,  page  48.)  "  Wild.  —  Oh,  Collonel  !  such 
discoveries."  (Page  50.)  "  Wild.  —  Then,  Collonel, 
we  '11  have  a  new  wedding."     (Page  20.)  ^ 

Again,  we  have  positive  and  unmistakable  testi- 
mony that  this  word  was  pronounced,  not  cornel,  but 
colnel,  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
In  1701,  J.  M.  D.  Jones  published  his  "  Practical 
Phonography,"  the  purpose  of  which  is  shown  by  his 
explanation  that  it  is  "  the  new  art  of  rightly  spell- 
ng  and  writing  words  by  the  sound  thereof,  and  of 

1  It  maybe  worth  while  to  remark  that  .c  the  course  of  the  play  the 
Colonel's  title  is  given  him  in  full  eighteen  times,  and  that  it  is  spelled 
with  two  I's,  twelve  times.  When  abbreviated,  which  it  is  seventeen 
limes,  it  is  always  given  with  two  Vs,  Coll.  Beau  Banter,  when  he  is 
telling  tha  Colonel  his  position,  says,  "  You  are  still  a  disbanded  co/o«e/, 
vnd  she  is  still  a  woman  of  quality  I  take  i;."  But,  directly  after- 
»ard,  mereh'  addressing  him  by  his  title,  he  abbreviates  it:  "  Coll.,  youl 
lumble  servant." 


240  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

rightly  sounding  and  reading  words  iu  the  sight 
thereof,  applied  to  the  English  tongue ;  "  and  to  the 
great  value  of  his  work,  as  a  record  of  pronunciation, 
Alexander  Ellis  bears  testimony.  This  phonographic 
witness  says  that  the  pronunciation  of  colonel  was 
colnel,  or,  as  Mr.  Ellis  prints  it  in  his  palseotype  key, 
'^  kal-nal." 

Skeat  of  course  refers  the  pronunciation  eurnel  to 
the  transmutation  of  I  into  r.  This  took  place  after 
the  middle  of  the  last  century.  The  change  seems  to 
have  been  preceded  by  a  general  contraction  of  the 
word  from  three  syllables,  col-o-nel,  into  two  (the  I 
in  the  first  being  preserved)  ;  and,  indeed,  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  r  in  the  modern  English  sound  of  the 
word  was  very  probably  due  chiefly  to  that  contrac- 
tion. In  the  prologue  to  Mrs.  Centlivre's  comedy, 
"  The  Busy-Body,"  which  was  written  about  1700, 
there  is  a  line  which  in  the  original  edition  is  printed 
thus :  — 

•'  Undaunted  Colonels  will  to  camps  repair 
Assur'd  tliere'll  be  no  skirmishes  tliis  _vear." 

Here  Colonels  may  have  been  a  trisyllable,  as  two 
short  syllables  are  permissible  instead  of  one  in  that 
part  of  the  line.  But  speech  is  always  somewliat 
in  advance  of  printed  language,  and  probably  Mrs. 
Centlivre  said  Colnels^  although  she  wrote  Colonels. 
Jn  subsequent  old  editions  of  the  same  play  we  have 
the  elision  carefully  marked  with  an  apostrophe. 
"  Undaunted  CoVnels^''''  etc.  The  mark  of  elision 
c>hows  that  the  right  of  the  second  syllable  was  still 
recognized,  just  as  an  exception  proves  a  rule,  and 
just  as  the  mark  of  the  elision  of  the  I  in  ivould  and 
should  Qwou'd,  should}  in  books  of  the  latter  part  of 
the  seventeenth  century  shows   that  the  pronunci* 


COMPROMISE   BETWEEN   SOUND    AND   SIGN.  241 

tion  of  that  letter  in  those  words  was  passing  away, 
or  had  already  passed  away,  but  was  not  yet  forgot- 
ten. When  the  pronunciations  woud  and  shoud  were 
firmly  established,  the  I  came  back  again.  As  to 
the  pronunciation  colnel  in  the  beginning  of  the  last 
century,  there  is  the  positive  testimony  of  the  pho- 
nographist,  Jones,  before  mentioned.  And  finally, 
as  to  the  continuance  of  this  pronunciation  fifty  years 
longer,  we  have  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Johnson.  His 
dictionary  does  not  give  pronunciations ;  indeed,  in 
his  day  pronouncing  dictionaries  were  not  known ; 
but  of  this  word  he  gives  the  pronunciation  with 
particularity,  thus  :  "  It  is  now  generally  sounded 
with  only  two  distinct  syllables,  cornel.'''  In  1755, 
then,  the  two-syllable  pronunciation  was  general,  but 
not  universal,  and  the  first  syllable  was  not  cor,  but 
col. 

Now  this  pronunciation  colnel  having  been  once 
reached,  the  passage  to  curnel  was  sure  and  swift. 
This  any  of  my  readers  will  soon  discover  by  saying 
colnel  a  few  times  easily  and  quickly.  It  will  be 
found  that  the  combination  In  cannot  very  easily  be 
distinguished  from  that  of  7'n,  if  the  r  is  really  ar- 
ticulated, that  is,  trilled,  although  ever  so  lightly. 
Colnel  and  cornel  with  a  trilled  r  are  as  like  as  two 
ivords  can  be  which  are  at  all  unlike.  The  tendency, 
however,  will  be  found  to  be  for  the  I  to  pass  through 
r  into  extinction.  Once  eliminate  the  o  which  sep- 
arates the  I  from  the  w,  and  curnel  comes  soon,  and 
cunnel  soon  after.  A  word  like  colonel  was  as  sure 
to  become  curnel  in  ordinary  speech,  and  finally  cun- 
lel,  as  summer  is  to  follow  spring,  and  autumn  sum- 
mer. And  this  is  the  history  of  the  word,  as  we 
know.     Our  great-great-grandfathers  said  colnel ;  our 

16 


242  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

grandfathers  eurnel,  as  we  do  ;  but  long  ago  slovenly 
and  rustic  speakers  said  cunnel. 

This  being  the  history  of  the  word,  it  is  plain  that 
when  its  orthography  was  settled  as  colonel  in  the 
earliest  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  no  "  blun- 
dering compromise  "  was  made  between  one  form  of 
spelling  and  another  of  pronouncing.  For  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  and  more  the  word  was  pronounced 
literally  according  to  its  written  form ;  and  we  have 
here,  as  in  beeii  and  in  England,  an  entire  failure 
to  support  the  theory  that  the  modern  relations  of 
spoken  and  written  English  are  in  a  great  measure 
due  to  the  fact  that  "  when  two  methods  of  writing 
the  same  word  were  in  common  use  we  have  not  un- 
frequently  retained  the  spelling  of  the  one  form  and 
the  pronunciation  of  the  other  ! " 

I  do  not,  however,  mean  to  assert  that  there  are  no 
words  in  the  English  language  of  which  this  is  true. 
For,  besides  that  general  negative  assertions  are  very 
dangerous  to  the  maker,  I  do  know  one  word  which 
Qfaute  de  colonel^  might  serve,  if  not  as  a  basis  for 
the  support  of  the  theory  in  question,  at  least  as  an 
illustration  of  it ;  and  this  Avord  is,  oddly  enough, 
another  military  title,  —  lieutenant.  The  pronuncia- 
tion of  this  word,  by  all  good  English  speakers,  has 
for  centuries  been  leftenant.  That  is  its  pronuncia- 
tion now  in  England  and  in  Ireland,  and  by  the  best 
speakers  in  America.  Very  anciently  it  was  spelled 
lieutenant,  as  now.  Gower  writes  leutenant.  Lord 
Berners,  in  his  translation  of  Froissart,  A.  D.  1523, 
wiites,  "  vycar  generall  and  lief  tenant  for  the  em- 
t^erour."  Some  seventy -five  years  later  Thomaa 
'Jhurchyard,  a  poor  poet,  but  a  careful  phonographic 
ipeller,  writes :  — 


COMPROMISE    BETWEEN   SOUND   AND    SIGN.  243 

"  O  falls  forsworn,  whatear  you  aer  give  place 
To  mighty  lovs  liej'tenant  here  on  earth." 
(Wished  Reformacion  of  Winked  Rebellion,  1598,  page  1.) 

Sir  Philip  Sidney,  or  his  printer,  spelled  the  word  in 
the  same  way  :  — 

"  And  on  my  thoughts  give  thy  lie/tenancy." 

(Astrophel  and  Stella,  106,  ed.  1605,  page  569.) 

Lieutenant  was,  however,  the  general  spelling  even 
in  the  olden  time  ;  lieftenant  the  rare  phonographic 
exception  ;  and  for  the  last  three  hundred  years  lieu- 
tenant has  been  absolute  in  spelling,  and  lef tenant  as 
absolute  in  pronunciation.  The  pronunciation  loo- 
tenant  is  not  only  an  Americanism,  but  one  of  very 
late  origin.  I  never  heard  it  in  my  boyhood.  It  has 
begun  to  prevail  recently,  and  is  a  manifestation 
of  spelling-book  speech  and  public-school  teaching. 
Only  those  who  must  go  to  spelling-books  and  to  dic- 
tionaries to  know  what  language  is,  and  who  speak 
"by  the  card"  and  not  by  the  ear,  would  teach  such 
a  pronunciation.  Here,  then,  is  a  word  in  which 
ihere  has  been  a  deliberate  preservation  of  a  form  of 
writing  concurrent  with  a  directly  opposed  form  of 
pronunciation. 

Lieutenant  came  into  the  English  language  from 
the  French ;  and  as  it  came  with  the  sound  of  w,  its 
obtaining  that  of  /  is  worthy  of  remark.  That  came 
about,  it  seems  to  me,  in  this  way :  In  old  writing,  u 
and  V  were  interchanged,  and  this  led  to  the  pronun- 
ciation of  liev-tenant  as  leev-ieiMxwt,  which  became 
U'e/-tenant,  and  finally  Z^/-tenant. 

It  is  apropos  and  not  without  interest  that  another 
iiiilitary  title  apparently  had  a  pronunciation  dif- 
l^erent  from  that  of  tc-day,  major,  which  seems  to 
have  been  sounded  mayor,  in  conf  )rmity  to  a  fashion 


244  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

of  pronouncing  j  upon  which  I  remarked  years  ago 
in  my  "  Memorandums  of  English  Pronunciation  in 
the  Elizabethan  Era."  We  even  find  the  word  so 
written,  for  example,  in  the  following  passage  in  the 
diar}^  of  Sir  Henry  Slingsby,  a  Royalist  commander 
in  the  Great  Rebellion,  who  seems  also  not  to  have 
pronounced  colonel  curnel. 

"  My  regiment  was  left  in  Stamport  Bridge  by  order  from 
the  Mayor  General,  and  to  receive  further  orders  from  Gol- 
lonell  Thronmerton,"  etc.   (a.  d.  1642.     Page  93,  ed.  1836.) 

The  fortune  of  the  I  in  colonel  connects  itself  with 
another  argument  which  is  made  much  of  by  the 
spelling  revolutionists.  This  is  that  silent  letters 
should  be  dropped  in  writing  as  they  are  in  speech, 
because  they  are  useless  now,  and  will  remain  unused 
ever  hereafter.  Thus  the  man  who  prefers  deign, 
feign,  and  impugn  to  dein,  fein,  and  impiun  is  scoffed 
at  for  his  desire  to  retain  a  letter  g  "  which  he  can 
never  possibly  use  ; "  and  as  regards  "  the  silent  k 
of  the  word  knave,^^  we  are  told  that  "  there  is  not 
the  slightest  probability  that  anybody  will  ever  pro- 
nounce it  in  the  future."  How  do  they  know  this  ? 
How  can  it  be  known  by  anybody  ?  I  cannot  suppose 
that  philologists  who  have  undertaken  to  upturn  the 
written  English  language  from  its  very  foundations 
are  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  letters  once  silent  in 
our  language  have  been  restored  to  speech.  This  let- 
ter I  in  particular  has  been  preserved  to  us  in  many 
words  by  the  art  of  printing,  whose  function  as  to 
written  language  they  find  so  pernicious,  and  it  has 
been  heard  in  those  words  by  the  common  unex 
pressed  consent  of  the  last  three  or  four  generations 
although  it  had  been  silent  through  preceding  centu 
ries. 


COMPROiMISE   BETWEEN   SOUND   AND   SIGN.  245 

A  few  examples  of  old  phonographic  spelling  will 
illustrate  what  must  be  known  to  all  students  of 
English,  not  excepting  possibly  some  of  the  profes- 
sional philologists.  Altar  was  pronounced  awter  and 
psalter  sawter,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  following  pas- 
sage. There  are  hundreds  like  it,  but  not  many  in 
which  psalm  also  appears  with  the  I:  — 

"  Theyr  consceyence  purge  fro  the  synnes  seven, 
Or  they  presum  to  go  to  the  aiotere, 
The  same psalme  set  in  the psawtere." 

(Lydgate,  The  Vertue  of  the  Masse,  a.  d.  1500.) 

Realm  was  also  pronounced  ream,  as  might  be 
shown  by  many  examples,  but  not  by  many  in  which 
it  is  sandwiched  between  two  controlling  words,  as  in 
the  jBrst  of  the  following  passages  :  — 

*'  As  the  King  in  earth  supreame, 
Head  of  the  church  of  this  realme, 
Oneh'  to  be  our  joyful  beam." 
(Thomas  Gibson,  Breve  Cronycle  of  the  Bj-sshope  of  Rome's  Blessing, 
A.  D.  1550.) 

"  Never  did  King  set  foote  on  English  ground 
With  more  applaud  than  our  renowmed  James; 
For  as  great  ioyes  within  our  heartes  abound, 
As  ever  were  contained  in  all  bis  i-ealmes." 

(God  Save  the  King,  1603,  .Uulth's  reprint.) 

Fault  was  also  pronounced  faut,  of  which  the 
illustrative  examples  are  countless  ;  but  here  is  one, 
from  the  sermons  of  an  illustrious  martyr,  by  which 
we  see  that  he,  or  his  reporter,  recognized  the  I,  al- 
though he  did  not  sound  it :  — 

"To  make  themselves  fauMesse,  or  at  least  way  they  will 
diminish  their  f antes."  (Latimer,  Sermons,  ed.  1562,  folio 
68.) 

So,  too,  vault  was  pronounced  vaut,  and  assault  as- 
%aut  (it  will  be  observed  that  all  these  words  are  of 
French  origin)  ;  and  the  wcrd  that  looks  so  odd  to 


246  e\t:ry-day  English. 

us,  salvage,  in  the  phrases  "salvage  man,"  "salvage 
beasts,"  in  old  books,  was  not  pronounced  with  an  I 
in  the  first  syllable,  but  at  first  soivvahge,  then  sauV' 
ahge,  then,  after  the  I  was  dropped,  salivahge,  and 
lastly  savedg.  Of  this  lifting  of  I  out  of  silence  into 
speech  the  word  falcon  is  an  interesting  example. 
In  "America,"  even  among  good  speakers,  this  word 
is  pronounced  to  rhyme  exactly  with  the  first  two  syl- 
lables of  halcon-y,  and  this  pronunciation  is  beginning 
to  assert  itself  in  England,  where,  however,  the  pro- 
nunciation of  good  speakers  has  been,  as  it  has  been 
here,  fawkn.  Indeed,  this  pronunciation  is  given  not 
only  by  the  majority  of  the  best  English  orthoe- 
pists  (some  giving  fal-coTi),  but  by  "  Webster  "  and 
"  Worcester."  It  is  needless  to  quote  for  the  sake 
of  establishing,  or  even  of  illustrating,  this  point ;  but 
he  following  passage  illustrates  the  petrifaction  of 
this  pronunciation  in  the  proper  name  Falkner  (a 
falconer)  :  — 

"  Birds  so  poor 
They  seem  scarce  worth  the  killing;  with  the  lark, 
(The  movmng' sfawlhner),  so  they  may  mount,  hie,"  etc. 
(Dekker,  The  Whore  of  Babylon,  1607,  page  230,  ed.  1873.) 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  although  this  word 
came  through  French  from  Latin,  and  although  the 
Latin  is  falco,  and  the  Old  French  faideon,  the  I 
was  not  pronounced  in  Old  English  and  does  not  ap- 
pear in  the  word  in  the  manuscript  of  early  English 
writers,  who  spell  the  first  syllable  fau.  The  resto- 
ration of  the  I  in  later  times  did  not  alter  the  pronun- 
ciation. Indeed,  I  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  silent 
sign  of  a  broad  vowel,  and  was  used  in  words  in  which 
it  had  no  proper  place  ;  for  example,  hawk :  — 

"  Let  me  but  hatvlke  at  him,  and  like  the  other, 
He  shall  confess  aU. 


COMPROMISE    BETWEEN    SOUND    AND    SIGN.  247 

Let  me  but  hawlke  at  him,,  as  at  the  rest. 

Where  would  you  find  such  game  as  you  would  hawlke  at?  " 

(Chapman,  Bussy  d'Ambois,  1607,  Act  III.,  Scene  1.) 

The  proper  name  Ralph  was  until  a  comparatively 
recent  period  always  pronounced  Rafe,  as  indeed  it  is 
now  by  some  old  and  punctilious  people.^  So,  also, 
Walter  was  pronounced  Water.  Of  this  well-known 
fact  there  is  whimsical  illustration  in  Middleton's  com- 
edy, "  Michaelmas  Term."  An  adventurer  named 
Andrew  Gruel  changes  his  name  to  Lethe,  —  the 
water  of  oblivion.     He  enters  :  — 

"Who's  this? 

"  In  the  name  of  the  black  angels,  Andrew  Gruel!  " 

"  No,  Andrew  Lethe." 

"Lethe? 

"  Has  forgot  his  father's  name. 

"  Poor  Walter  Gruel,  that  begot  him,  fed  him, 

"  And  brought  him  up." 

(Act  I.,  Scene  3.) 

Andrew  Lethe's  father's  name  was  plainly  Water 
Gruel ;  but  the  I  was  sounded  in  Walter  in  the  last 
century. 

I  could  point  out  many  such  examples  of  the  com- 
ing out  of  letters  once  silent,  vowels  as  well  as  conso- 
nants, but  it  would  be  both  superfluous  and  weari- 
some. The  w,  for  example,  used  never  to  be  heard 
in  quote  and  banquet.,  which,  till  a  comparatively  re- 
cent period,  were  pronounced  kote  and  banket.  In 
bankrupt  the  p  was  silent  for  centuries,  so  that  the 
word  was  oftener  than  otherwise  written  without  it. 
For  example :  — 

"  I  will  not  have  my  trains 
Made  a  retreat  for  bankroutes,  nor  my  court 
A  hive  for  droanes,  proude  beggars  and  true  thieves." 

(Chapman,  Byron's  Conspiracy,  1608,  Act  I.,  Scene  1.) 

1  In  the  preliminary  matter  to  Penelope's  Complaint,  a.  d.  15Q6,  ad- 
tressed  to  the  widow  of  Sir  Ralph  Hcsey,  his  name  is  spelled  Ba/« 
HanJ'e,  and  Raph,  never  Ralph. 


248  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Here  we  have  letters,  both  consonants  and  vowels, 
which  were  silent  for  centuries,  brought  boldly  for- 
ward into  speech,  and  in  the  case  of  falcon  the  tran« 
sition  is  gomg  on  before  our  eyes,  or,  rather,  in  our 
very  ears. 

To  the  foregoing  examples  I  add  more  briefly  the 
following  to  show  that  letters  once  silent  do  not  al- 
ways remain  so.  In  the  seventeenth  century  and  in 
the  early  part  of  the  last,  a  was  silent  in  acquit^ 
alembic^  and  arrears;  c  in  perfect,  verdict,  and  sched- 
ule; d  in  amendment,  children,  coynmandment,  dan- 
dle, fondle,  goldsmith,  and  handsome ;  e  in  moiety ; 
I  in  emerald,  in  addition  to  the  words  mentioned 
above  /  n  in  hittern  and  kiln  ;  o  in  coin,  destroy,  oint- 
ment, oil,  oyster,  broil,  join,  point,  poison,  soil;  tin 
beastly;  u  in  conduit,  and  in  venture,  lecture,  and 
all  words  ending  in  ure  it  had  the  sound  of  close, 
short  e,  as  in  inter  ;  o  in  houseivife  ;  w  in  backward, 
forward,  and  Edward.  Moreover,  h  was  heard  be- 
tween s  and  u  in  sue,  suet,  suicide,  sup^'eme,  suprem- 
acy, suit,  and  suitor,  as  it  is  now  in  sure  and  in  sugar. 
Sometimes,  but  very  rarely,  we  find  it  phonograph- 
ically  written,  as,  for  example  :  — 

"  Durst  my  sonne,  thusrebell  to  his  dutie, 
Steale  up  a  match  unshuting  to  his  estate?  " 

(Chapman,  All  Fooles,  1605,  Act  II.,  Scene  1.) 

This  pronunciation  gave  Shakespeare  an  opportu- 
nity for  a  pun  on  suitor  and  shooter  in  "  Love's  La- 
bor's  Lost." 

"  Boyet.     Who  is  the  suitor?  who  is  the  suitor  ? 
Rosaline.  Shall  I  teach  you  to  know? 

Boyet.    Ay,  my  continent  of  beauty. 

Rosaline.  Why,  she  that  bears  the  bow." 

(Act  IV.,  Scene  1.) 

Indeed,  in   the  original  edition  suitor  is  here  pho 


COMPROMISE   BETWEEN   SOUND   AND   SIGN.         249 

nogiaphically  printed  shooter^  and  in  the  previous  act 
we  have  shue  for  sue.  This  pronunciation  lingered 
in  New  England  (and  I  believe  in  Old  England  too) 
until  the  second  quarter  of  this  century.  I  remem- 
ber having  heard  in  my  boyhood  very  old  people, 
persons  of  education  and  breeding,  say  shupreme. 

In  the  face  of  these  facts,  and  when  we  have  such 
a  man  as  Professor  Newman  urging  the  restoration 
to  sound  of  letters  now  silent  (see  Chapters  IV.  and 
v.),  is  it  not,  to  say  the  least,  somewhat  rash,  if  not 
presuming,  for  speculative  philologists  to  venture 
upon  a  pi'ediction  as  to  what  silent  letter  may  not 
be  heard  once  more,  or  heard  at  last,  though  never 
heard  before  ?  And  is  there  not  a  warning  to  us  in 
this  not  to  disturb  the  silent  letters  in  our  written 
language,  —  quieta  non  movere  ? 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

TOHNSCN's  DICTIONARY:    ITS  EELATION  TO   ESTAB- 
LISHED  ENGLISH  ORTHOGRAPHY. 

Not  only  phonetic  spelling  reformers  and  philolo- 
gists, but  many  others,  assign  to  Dr.  Johnson's  Dic- 
tionary an  important  agency  in  the  formation  of  the 
orthography  of  the  present  time.  This,  we  are  told, 
"  was  practically  fixed  by  Johnson's  Dictionary,  and 
as  he  left  it  such  it  has,  with  unimportant  exceptions, 
remained."  Again  it  is  said,  "  Johnson's  Dictionary 
almost  instantly  petrified  the  forms  of  the  words  in- 
cluded in  it.  The  univei-sal  adoption  of  the  spelling 
employed  by  him  arrested  even  the  few  processes  to- 
ward simplification  that  were  then  going  on."  Yet 
again  :  "  It  was  not  until  the  appearance  of  John- 
son's Dictionary,  in  1755,  that  the  orthography  can 
be  said  to  have  become  fixed  ; "  and  we  are  told, 
moreover,  that  "  the  injury  that  Johnson  did  the 
orthography  of  our  tongue  can  hardly  be  ascribed  to 
his  teachings." 

It  is  worth  the  while  of  those  who  are  giving  at- 
tention to  this  subject  to  have  these  opinions  set  be- 
fore them  specifically  and  in  detail,  because  they  are 
so  generally  entertained ;  having  been  adopted  incon- 
siderately, I  venture  to  think,  by  a  very  large  num- 
ber of  those  who  have  interested  themselves  in  Eng- 
lish spelling.  Indeed,  it  would  be  safe  to  sa}'  that 
nearly  if  not  quite  all  such  persons  believe  that  Dr 
Johnson,    by   his    dictionary,  did    very   much  —  fai 


Johnson's  dictionary.  251 

more  than  any  other  person  —  to  foi'm  our  present 
English  orthography,  and  that  he  did  absolutely  fix 
that  orthography  and  impose  it  upon  the  English- 
Bpeakiug  peoples. 

This  belief  is  altogether  erroneous.  Johnson  nei- 
ther formed  nor  fixed  English  orthography.  There 
was  no  adoption,  universal  or  partial,  of  the  spell- 
ing employed  by  Johnson.  It  is  not  true  that  Eng- 
lish orthography  cannot  be  said  to  have  become 
fixed  until  1755,  the  date  of  the  appearance  of  John- 
son's Dictionary.  Johnson  did  the  orthography  of 
the  English  tongue  no  harm ;  nor  did  he  do  it  any 
good. 

Johnson  did  not  form,  in  any  degree,  our  modern 
orthography,  because  he  took  it  simply  as  he  found 
it.  His  spelling  was  not  "  adopted  "  universally  or 
partially,  because  people  went  on  spelling  after  the 
publication  of  his  dictionary  just  as  they  had  spelled 
for  seventy-five  years  before  that  event.  English  or- 
thography was  as  much  fixed  during  that  antecedent 
period  as  it  has  been  in  any  period  since.  This  being 
true,  it  follows  that  Johnson  did  English  spelling 
neither  harm  nor  good. 

That  it  is  true  will,  I  think,  plainly  appear  upon 
the  presentation  of  certam  facts  in  the  case.  I  had, 
in  a  general  way,  come  long  ago  to  the  conclusions 
just  set  forth ;  but  wishing  to  have  my  conclusions 
rest  upon  some  specific  and  characteristic  facts,  I 
made  certain  books  the  subject  of  careful  comparison. 
It  was  dreary  drudgery,  but  when  you  wish  to  know 
the  number  of  persons  at  a  table  there  is  only  one 
way  of  coming  at  the  knowledge,  —  to  "  count  noses." 
3  could  not  if  I  would  repeat  here  the  details  of  my 
somparison  and  in  mercv  to  my  readers  I  would  not 


252  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

do  so  if  I  could.  I  shall  Dierely  present  facts  enough 
to  make  the  matter  clear, 

Johnson's  Dictionary  was  published  in  1755.  The 
first  edition  of  Isaak  Walton's  "  Compleat  Angler " 
was  published  in  1653, —  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
just  a  century  before  the  dictionary.  Walton,  al- 
though he  was  not,  like  that  master  of  English  style, 
John  Bunyan,  a  wholly  illiterate  man,  was  yet  unedu- 
cated, and  was  not  a  good  speller  for  his  day ;  but  we 
may  pass  over  that  disability  (which  makes  against 
the  view  here  presented)  in  consideration  of  the  po- 
sition of  his  book  in  literature,  and  of  its  date.  An 
examination  of  the  words  upon  a  hundred  pages  of 
the  original  edition  of  the  "  Compleat  Angler,"  and 
the  comparison  of  them  with  Johnson's  Dictionary, 
shows  135  words  which  are  spelled  in  the  former  as 
they  are  not  in  the  latter  ;  that  is,  less  than  one 
word  and  a  half  in  a  page. 

Advancing  some  twenty-five  years,  I  examined  two 
books  by  Lord  Chief  Justice  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  who, 
unlike  Walton,  was  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  letters. 
The  first  was  his  "  Life  of  Pomponius  Atticus,"  which 
was  published  in  1677.  The  first  edition  of  this  book 
shows  (I  do  not  go  into  the  details  of  the  comparison 
in  this  instance),  in  three  chapters, making  103  pages, 
and  containing  17,716  words,  42  words  the  spelling 
of  which  differs  from  Di;.  Johnson's.  Many  of  these 
are  repeated  ;  but  counting  all  the  repetitions,  there 
is  less  than  one  word  in  185  the  spelling  of  which 
differs  from  the  Johnsonian  "  standard." 

This  book,  however,  contains  many  typographical 
errors  ;  and  to  show  that  these  were  not  disregarded 
'n  those  days,  I  mention  that  in  my  copy  they  are 
corrected  in  a  contemporary  hand.  But  this  work 
was  published  anonymously,  and  seems  to  have  been 


Johnson's  dictionary.  253 

one  of  those  to  which  the  Chief  Justice  refers  in  the 
preface  of  the  next  book  of  his  which  I  examined  as 
"some  writings  of  mine  [which]  have  without  my 
privity  come  into  print."  I  therefore  examined  his 
"  Primitive  Origination  of  Mankind,"  which  also  was 
published  in  1677,  but  under  his  own  supervision. 
The  large  folio  pages  of  this  work  contain,  in  round 
numbers,  600  words  each.  On  30  of  these  pages, 
containing  18,000  words,  I  found  only  25  words  the 
Bpelling  of  which  differs  from  that  of  Johnson's  Dic- 
tionary. But  repetitions  (for  example  meer  or  meerly 
four  times,  subtil  four  times,  agil  thrice)  brought  the 
number  of  variations  to  41.  This  in  18,000  gives, 
within  a  fraction,  only  one  word  in  400  in  which  Sir 
Matthew  Hale,  who  in  1677  was  sixty-six  years  old, 
and  therefore  somewhat  old-fashioned,  differed  from 
the  "  standard  "  orthography  of  Johnson's  Dictionary, 
which  was  published  in  1755,  three  quarters  of  a  cent- 
ury later ! 

It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  other  examinations  and 
comparisons  of  the  same  kind  led  to  substantially  the 
Bame  results ;  and  that  finally  the  examination  of 
books  of  a  date  one  quarter  of  a  century  later  than 
Sir  Matthew  Hale's  discovered  no  difference  whatever 
(except  in  an  occasional  manifest  slip  of  the  press  or 
of  the  pen)  between  their  spelling  and  that  of  John- 
son's Dictionary.  There  the  "  Johnsonian  "  words 
were ;  the  governour,  the  candour,  the  honour,  the 
musick,  the  politick,  and  all  the  rest  of  them.  There 
was  no  difference  whatever  ;  and  yet  this  left  half  a 
century  to  pass  before  the  appearance  of  the  great 
dictionary.  Moreover,  in  the  course  of  that  half  cent- 
ury tbere  appeared  a  very  important,  and  to  this  day 
a  very  useful,  dictionary  of  the  English  language, 
Bailey's,  the  first  edition  of  which  was  published,  I 


254  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

believe,  in  1726.  Now,  Bailey's  spelling  is  exactly 
that  of  Jolinson.  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  one 
word  in  which  they  differ,  except  governour^  which 
Bailey  spells  governor,  and  even  this  is  not  improb- 
ably a  typographical  error. 

The  case  is  simply  this :  Bailey  spelled  words  as 
he  found  them  spelled  in  the  literature  of  the  day,  in 
the  books  of  tlie  best  contemporary  writers.  Addi- 
son, Steele,  Pope,  and  their  fellows  were  his  "  au- 
thorities" for  spelling.  The  same  is  true  of  Dr. 
Johnson.  He  found  his  orthography  in  the  books 
which  were  the  English  classics  of  his  day,  which 
formed  the  body  of  the  elegant  literature  of  that 
time  ;  that  is,  the  works  of  the  writers  who  had  ob- 
tained reputation  in  the  half  century  previous  to  the 
publication  of  his  dictionary.  Instead  of  establish- 
ing a  standard  to  which  his  contemporaries  and  his 
immediate  successors  conformed,  instead  of  '■'  adopt- 
ing "  a  spelling  to  which  they  showed  a  "  slavish 
deference,"  he,  with  deference  to  established  forms,  — 
if  that  may  be  called  deference  which  was  hardly  to 
be  avoided,  —  "slavishly"  recorded  the  orthography 
of  his  contemporaries  and  of  his  predecessors  for  half 
a  century,  an  orthography  which  a  preceding  diction- 
ary maker  had  in  like  manner  accepted  and  recorded, 
and  for  the  same  reason. 

This  being  true,  the  truth  of  my  other  propositions 
follows  in  the  simple  course  of  reason.  For  the  con- 
tinuance and  careful  preservation  for  half  a  century 
after  the  publication  of  Johnson's  Dictionary  (which 
brings  us  down  to  the  year  1800)  of  the  orthography 
which  had  been  established  and  carefully  preserved 
for  at  least  half  a  century  previous  to  the  date  of  that 
tremendous  lexicographical  event  is  plainly  not  due 


JOUNSONS   DICTIONARY.  255 

to  the  literary  authority  of  Samuel  Johnson.  The 
same  power  which  established  the  orthography  in 
vogue  in  1800  and  in  1700,  and  preserved  it  for  fifty 
years  before  the  appearance  of  Dr.  Johnson  upon  the 
field  of  lexicography,  preserved  it  after  that  impos- 
ing manifestation.  That  power  was  the  consent  of 
the  educated  classes  of  the  English  people,  expressed 
through  their  representatives,  the  great  writers  and 
scholars  of  the  day,  counseled  and  assisted  by  intel- 
ligent and  educated  printers  and  correctors  of  the 
press.  These  were  the  men,  and  not  Dr.  Johnson, 
who  gave  us  our  present  way  of  writing  English.  It 
was  by  their  labors,  extending  through  two  centuries, 
but  coming  rapidly  to  a  destined  result  just  before 
the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  that  a  uniform  and,  despite 
all  that  has  been  said,  a  tolerably  consistent  standard 
of  orthography  was  attained  in  the  English  language. 
It  is  the  recognition  by  such  men  of  the  general 
fitness  and  the  supreme  convenience  of  that  standard 
that  has  preserved  it  essentially  thus  far,  and  not  in 
any  way  the  authority  of  Dr.  Johnson,  who  did  Eng- 
lish spelling  neither  harm  nor  good  ;  no  harm,  even 
if  change  and  progress  toward  phonetic  spelling  is  a 
necessary  condition  of  freedom  from  evil.  For  John- 
son has  been  as  powerless  to  prevent  change  as  he 
was  apparently  unable  or  undesirous  to  begin  it. 
English  orthography  has  been  less  stable,  less  fixed, 
since  the  appearance  of  his  dictionary  than  it  was 
before  that  event.  A  volume  of  Macaulay's  "  Es- 
says "  differs  more  in  spelling  from  Johnson's  "  stand- 
ard "  than  a  volume  of  Addison's  —  for  example,  his 
"  Freeholder  "  —  does  in  the  same  respect.  Thus 
much  for  England ;  and  when  we  cross  to  America, 
lUid  compare  Webster's  Dictionary  with  Johnson's, 


256  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

we  find  that  in  its  manifold  variations  in  spelling  it  ia 
not  to  be  compared  with  the  principal  predecessor  of 
Johnson ;  for  Johnson's  spelling  is  but  Bailey's.  Nor 
is  it  to  be  compared  with  the  authors  of  a  quarter 
of  a  centui'y  preceding  Bailey  ;  for  again  Johnson's 
spelling,  like  Bailey's,  is  but  their  spelling.  John- 
son, as  he  did  nothing  to  form  English  orthography, 
has  done  nothing  to  fix  it. 

The  matter  of  a  settled  and  uniform  orthography 
was  coming  rapidly  to  a  head  about  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  wholly  without  the  aid  of  lexi- 
cogi'aphers,  great  or  small.  This  may  be  illustrated 
by  a  classification  of  the  words  above  referred  to  in 
Walton  which  differ  from  that  standard  which,  by 
silent  and  common  consent  of  the  best  writers,  had 
been  adopted  somewhat  before  A.  D.  1700.  Of  those 
135  words  in  the  100  pages  of  Walton's  "Compleat 
Angler,"  the  only  difference  in  no  less  than  55,  more 
than  one  third  of  the  whole  number,  is  the  mere  ad- 
dition of  a  superfluous  g,  —  wee  for  w«,  heare  for  hear, 
businesse  for  business,  alwayes  for  alivays,  and  so  forth. 
In  25  the  only  difference  is  the  use  of  ie  for  y  final, 
■ — pitie  for  pity,  flie  for  fly,  antiquitie  for  antiquity, 
and  so  forth.  In  14  the  difference  is  that  of  one  final 
I  for  two,  as  til  for  till.  In  four  the  difference  is  the 
absence  of  a  final  e,  as  partridg  for  partridge.  In 
three  the  perfect  participle  is  spelled  (as  it  fre- 
quently is  nowadays)  with  t  instead  of  ed,  as  jixt 
for  fixed.^ 

1  In  an  examination  of  Walton's  spelling  heretofore  I  set  forth  his  vari- 
Btions  from  standard  orthography  as  being  considerably  fewer  tlian  those 
mentioned  above.  The  difference  is  partly  due  to  the  enumeration  in  th« 
present  calculation  of  repetitions,  and  also  of  all  variations  whatever,  such 
for  example,  as  He  and  Bostis,  although  these  are  plainly  not  intention, 
fclly  spellings  of  /  will  or  of  the  feminine  of  Hoste. 


Johnson's  dictionary.  257 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  all  these  words  the  varia- 
tions are  merely  terminal ;  they  do  not  touch  the 
body,  the  real  structure,  of  the  word.  They  leave 
but  31  in  which  the  body  of  the  word  is  affected,  — 
examples  are  sowr  for  sour,  neer  for  near,  Jcetch  for 
catch,  pibhle  for  pebble  ;  and  of  these  not  a  few  may 
be  fairly  set  down  to  the  good  angling  sempster's 
old-fashioned  ways. 

When  we  come  to  examine  Sir  Matthew  Hale's 
spelling,  we  find  that  the  superfluous  terminal  e  has 
almost  entirely  disappeared ;  it  is  found  in  but  four 
words  :  si/steme,  atome,  saye,  and  essa,ye.  The  final 
ie  appears  in  four  :  satisfie,  busie,  phantasie,  and  sig- 
nifie.  The  final  e  is  omitted  in  four :  agil,  engin, 
subtil,  and  tast.  The  doubled  consonant  is  omitted 
in  three  :  setled,  enabled,  and  dazle,  which  may  be 
misprints.  But  of  mere  terminal  irregularities  there 
are  very  few  instances,  even  reckoning  condescention 
as  one ;  and  the  uncertainty  appears  chiefly  in  such 
spellings  as  cloaths,  ceconomical,  extreamly,  voyce, 
priviledge,  chuse,  and  so  forth.  But  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  these  variations,  all  told,  including 
repetitions,  show  a  difference  from  the  spelling  of 
Johnson's  Dictionary  of  only  one  word  in  400  !  To 
this  point  had  the  discipline  of  the  printing-ofiice 
and  the  common  consent  of  scholars  and  writers 
brought  Englisli  spelling  more  than  three  quarters 
of  a  century  before  the  appearance  of  Johnson's  Dic- 
tionary. The  next  quarter  of  a  century  perfected  a 
standard  which  it  imposed  upon  Dr.  Johnson,  but 
which  the  alleged  authority  of  Dr.  Johnson  has  not 
been  able  to  impose  so  absolutely  upon  succeeding 
writers  and  makers  of  dictionaries.  We  are  com- 
pelled, therefore,  to  conclusions  wholly  at  variance 

17 


258  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

with  the  teachings  of  some  enthusiastic  phonetio-soell- 
ing  reformers  upon  this  subject. 


It  may  be  well  to  set  forth  concisely  and  in  a  new 
order  the  positions  which  have  been  taken  in  the  fore- 
going division.     These  are,  —  ' 

(1.)  Language  is  speech,  of  which  writing  is  not 
the  representation,  but  the  suggestion.  (Pages  119, 
145,  166.) 

(2.)  Spelling  has  nothing  to  do  with  speech:  spoken 
words  are  not  formed  by  a  combination  of  distinct 
sounds,  as  written  words  are  formed  by  combinations 
of  signs  :  words,  not  letters,  are  pronounced.  (Pages 
128,  145, 168.) 

(3.)  A  certain  non-conformity  of  speech  and  writ- 
ing is  inevitable,  and  is  the  growth  of  circumstances. 
(Pages  124,  171.) 

(4.)  The  difficulty  of  learning  to  spell  has  been 
much  exaggerated  by  phonetic  enthusiasts,  and  mis- 
apprehended by  other  persons.  (Pages  127,.  173, 176, 
202.) 

(5.)  The  economical  disadvantages  of  the  received 
English  spelling  have  also  been  monstrously  exag- 
gerated.    (Pages  141,  174.) 

(6.)  The  economical  disadvantages  of  a  phonetic 
change  in  the  spelling  of  English  would  be  so  great 
as  to  be  calamitous.     (Page  175.) 

(7.)  Phonetic  spelling  involves  changes  in  written 
language  from  time  to  time.     (Page  137.) 

(8.)  The  introduction  of  phonetic  spelling  would 
make  the  written  English  of  the  past  a  dead  letter 
and   English   literature  from    the   time  of   Spenser 


Johnson's  dictionary.  259 

Bacon,  and  Shakespeare  a  dead  literature,  except  in 
transliteration.     (Page  191.) 

(9.)  Phonetic  spelling  involves  an  entire  change 
in  the  structure  of  written  English.     (Page  190.) 

(10.)  The  function  of  science  as  to  language  is  not 
to  improve  it,  but  to  study  it  historically,  compara- 
tively, and  analytically.     (Page  125.) 

(11.)  Philologists  are  incompetent,  and  out  of 
place,  as  reformers  of  written  language.  (Pages 
139,  207.) 

(12.)  Spelling,  like  speech,  is  not  for  the  conven- 
ience of  philologists  and  phonologists,  but  for  the 
e very-day  use  of  three  coexisting  generations  of  men, 
who  wish  not  only  to  communicate  with  each  other, 
but  with  past  and  with  future  generations.  The 
question  as  to  spelling  is  chiefly  one  of  practical  con- 
venience —  to-day.     (Page  181.) 

(13.)  Printing  did  not  introduce  confusion  into 
written  language,  but,  on  the  contrary,  was  the 
means  of  an  approximation  to  a  systematic  and  uni- 
form orthography.     (Pages  158,  223.) 

(14.)  Modern  English  orthography  is  not  the  re- 
ftvilt  of  a  blundering  compromise  between  sound  and 
written  form.     (Pages  230-249.) 

(15.)  The  received  spelling  of  English  is  in  no 
way  the  result  of  Dr.  Johnson's  labors.  His  diction- 
ary merely  recorded  a  spelling  which  had  been  es- 
tablished for  fifty  years,  and  that  spelling  it  has  not 
been  able  to  fix.     (Pages  251-257.) 

(16.)  Etymology,  although  not  of  controlling  im- 
portance in  spelling,  is  decorous ;  it  is  interesting  and 
valuable,  and  to  a  certain  degree  instructive.  (Page 
147.) 

(17.)  Phonetic  spelling  reform  is  no  new  discovery 


260  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

or  "  movement,"  but  is  centuries  old,  and  notwith- 
standing tlie  learning,  the  ingenuity,  and  the  labor 
of  its  advocates  it  has  always  failed.     (Page  150.) 

(18.)  The  sounds  to  be  expressed  by  phonetic 
writing  are  quite  indeterminable.  (Pages  179,  195, 
199.) 

(19.)  Letters  once  silent  have  in  numerous  and 
various  instances,  including  whole  classes  of  words, 
been  restored  to  sound.  This  might  be  done  again, 
and  should  not  be  hindered.     (Page  244.) 

(20.)  The  ablest,  most  learned,  and  most  expe- 
rienced of  spelling  reformers  in  his  last  publication 
confesses,  after  a  life  given  to  the  work,  that  the 
more  he  endeavors  after  a  phonetic  spelling  the 
greater  the  difficulties  he  finds  in  his  way.  (Page 
216.) 

Therefore  we  may  safely  infer  and  conclude  that,  — 

(21.)  A  revolution  in  English  spelling  is  unneces- 
sary, and  is  not  called  for  by  the  mass  of  the  intel- 
ligent English-speaking  and  English-reading  people, 
and  is  practically  impossible.  Any  attempt  to  in- 
troduce phonetic  spelling  into  literature  on  an  ex- 
tended scale  would  result  only  in  anarchy,  confusion, 
and  disaster,  which  would  be  temporary,  indeed,  but 
^ave  and  deplorable. 


GRAMMAR. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

*  ENGLISH   GRAMMAR,"   SO   CALLED.      WHAT   GRAM* 
MAR   IS. 

**  Ah,  it 's  me,"  said  Mr.  Squeers,  "and  me  's  the 
first  person  singular,  nominative  case,  agreeing  with 
the  verb  it 's,  and  governed  by  Squeers  understood  ; 
as,  a  acorn,  a  hour ;  but  when  the  A  is  sounded,  the 
a  only  is  to  be  used,  as  a  'and,  a  'art,  a  'ighway." 
This  delicious  passage  is  highly  overcharged,  like  al- 
most all  of  its  author's  writing,  but  nevertheless  is 
full  of  life  and  truth.  The  reason  of  its  being  so  ex- 
quisitely laughable  is  not  because  of  its  representa- 
tion of  the  ignorance  of  the  school-master,  the  union 
of  the  pedagogue  and  the  ignoramus  having  been 
often  presented  before,  but  because  it  calls  up  so 
vividly  the  vague,  confused  memories  left  in  most 
minds  by  the  study  of  that  absurd  and  utterly  useless 
"  branch  "  of  education,  English  grammar. 

Squeers's  speech  is  constructed  with  admirable  art. 
The  blunder  in  the  person  and  case  of  me,  the  mak- 
vng  the  noun  agree  with  the  verb,  and  the  confused 
reference  to  it 's  as  a  verb,  —  the  single  syllable  really 
containing  the  verb  is,  —  make  a  ridiculous  muddle, 
indeed ;  but  all  this  would  have  failed  of  its  present 
effect  without  the  introduction  of  that  sage  and  mys- 
terious formula  of  "  parsing  "  which  completes  the 
analysis,  "  and  governed  by  Squeers  understood." 
The  climax  is  capped  by  the  "  as  "  and  the  introduc- 
tion, in  the  manner  of  grammarians,  of  an  example 


264  EVERY -DAY   ENGLISH. 

which  is  entirely  from  the  purpose,  and  which  is  not 
only  confused  and  erroneous,  but,  with  all  its  ab- 
surdity, so  characteristic  an  example  of  the  style  of 
illustration  in  English  grammar,  that  every  person 
who  has  been  put  tlirough  the  bewildering  discipline 
of  that  study  recognizes  on  the  instant  the  condition 
of  his  own  mind  at  some  period  of  his  pupilage. 
Dickens  is  the  great  master  of  this  sort  of  word  cari- 
cature,—  that  which  represents  a  confused  recollec- 
tion of  facts  and  an  inconsequent,  disconnected  suc- 
cession of  thoughts.  Shakespeare  touched  this,  of 
course,  as  he  touched  everything.  But  he  did  it 
merely  by  the  way,  in  passing.  Dickens  lays  him- 
self out  on  it,  elaborates  it,  and  rises  with  it  to  the 
height  of  the  ridiculous,  —  in  Mrs.  Gamp,  for  in- 
stance, and  Flora,  in  "Little  Dorrit." 

I  believe  that  I  have  not  overstated  the  case  in 
saying  that  Mr.  Squeers's  amazing  effort  in  parsing 
is  a  mere  caricature  of  the  impression  left  upon  most 
minds  by  the  study  of  English  grammar.  I  know 
that  there  are  some  persons  who  have  not  yet  written 
English  grammars,  —  the  existing  number  of  which, 
however,  shows  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
English-speaking  race  must  have  engaged,  at  one 
period  or  another,  in  that  cheerful  occupation,  —  but 
who,  mute,  inglorious  Lindley  Murrays  and  Goold 
Browns,  do  believe  that  to  speak  and  write  "  good 
grammar  "  is  the  highest  attainable  point  in  educa- 
tion, and  to  whom  a  sentence,  albeit  uttered  by  the 
Supreme  Wisdom  amid  tnunderings  and  lightnings, 
is  chiefly  something  that  may  be  parsed.  But  these 
people  are  specialists,  and  partake  of  the  insanity 
ihat  pertains  to  specialism.  Those  who  I  expect  will 
agree  with  me  are  the  mass  of  intelligent  people  to 


•*  ENGLISH   GRAMMAR,"    SO    CALLED.  265 

«vhom  language  is  merely  the  means  of  communicat- 
mg  facts  and  thoughts. 

I  have  called  the  contrivance  known  as  English 
grammar  absurd,  and  the  study  of  it  a  useless  study  ; 
and  I  verily  and  soberly  believe  both  these  assertions 
to  be  ti'ue.  The  absurdity  of  the  contrivance  was 
shown  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses ; "  the  uselessness 
of  the  study  may  appear  by  what  follows.  I  believe 
that  the  effect  of  the  study  of  English  grammar,  so 
called,  is  to  cramp  the  free  action  of  the  mind ;  to  be- 
wilder and  confuse  where  it  does  not  enfeeble  and  for- 
malize ;  to  pervert  the  perception  of  the  true  excel- 
lence of  English  speech ;  and,  in  brief,  to  substitute 
the  sham  of  a  dead  form  for  the  reality  of  a  living 
spirit. 

The  question,  What  is  grammar  ?  is  of tener  asked 
now  than  it  used  to  be ;  for  the  old  definition  fails  to 
satisfy  many  people,  —  most,  indeed,  of  those  who 
think  upon  the  subject.  But  this  question,  in  its 
bare  and  simple  form,  is  almost  as  hard  to  answer  as 
jesting  Pilate's.  One  answer  which  has  been  given 
with  great  confidence  by  more  than  one  writer  on 
language  is  that  "  grammar  is  a  statement  of  the  facts 
of  a  language."  Truly  a  somewhat  expansive  defini- 
tion, and,  I  venture  to  say,  one  that  is  sorely  enfee- 
bled with  vagueness.  For  the  facts  of  a  language 
incilude  all  the  incidents  of  its  history,  —  its  origin, 
its  formation,  its  development,  the  fleeting  usages, 
both  verbal  and  constructive,  in  past  centuries,  as  well 
as  the  best  usage  of  the  present,  and  so  forth,  and 
BO  forth.  There  is  nothing  in  regard  to  language 
which  this  definition  will  not  cover.  It  means  so 
much  that,  in  my  judgment,  it  practically  means 
aothingr. 


266  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

As  to  the  word  "grammar,"  it  has  no  limited,  ab- 
solute meaning.  It  must  be  accepted  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  is  used  by  any  writer  whose  abilities  are 
respectable  enough  to  make  his  views  worthy  of  con- 
sideration. It  was  formerly  used  to  mean  not  only 
the  art,  so  called,  of  reading  and  writing  correctly, 
but  all  the  arts  of  which  language  was  the  medium, 
■^  rhetoric,  poetry,  tragic  composition,  and  elocution. 
Cicero  uses  it  (in  "  De  Finibus  "  and  "  De  Oratore  ") 
to  mean  philology  in  the  widest  sense  known  in  his 
time.  These  senses  are  at  once  narrower  and  wider 
than  that  ot  the  definition  given  above.  They  do 
not  include  the  history  of  a  language,  but  they  do  in- 
clude literary  arts,  to  which  that  definition  does  not 
apply. 

Let  us  see  what  some  highly  distinguished  writers 
upon  language  mean  when  they  use  the  word  gram- 
mar. Turning  only  to  such  books  as  are  within  my 
reach  as  I  write,  I  find  the  following  definitions: 
Lilly,  in  his  Latin  grammai',  which  was  almost  exclu- 
sively used  in  England  for  nearly  three  centuries 
(my  copy  is  dated  1621),  and  from  whicb  Shake- 
speare quotes  in  the  "  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor," 
says,  "  Crrammatica  est  recte  scrihendi  atque  lo- 
quendi  ars,''"'  of  which  Murray's  well-known  defini- 
tion is  merely  an  English  version.  Making  a  skip 
of  three  hundred  years,  and  turning,  for  the  moment, 
to  Professor  Whitney's  "Essentials  of  English  Gram- 
mar," we  have  as  its  first  dictum,  "  Grammar  is  that 
branch  of  knowledge  which  teaches  the  art  of  speak- 
ing correctly."  Truly,  this  notion  has  held  its  own 
well  tlu'ough  the  lapse  of  centuries.  But  the  distin- 
guished Yale  professor  goes  on  to  say  (rightly,  in  my 
opinion,  as    I   need   hardly   tell    my  readers)    that, 


"  ENGLISH   GRAMxMAR,"    SO    CALLED.  267 

'•properly  speaking,  it  [grammar]  includes  only  ety- 
mology and  syntax."  ^ 

In  the  first  thoroughly  historical,  analytical,  and, 
BO  to  speak,  philological  Latin  grammar  published 
in  the  English  language,  Roby's  "  Grammar  of  the 
Latin  Language,  from  Plautus  to  Suetonius,"  the  au- 
thor says,  with  emphasis,  "Now,  first,  by  grammar  I 
mean  an  orderly  arrangement  of  the  facts  which  con- 
cern the  form  of  a  language."  It  will  be  observed 
that  he  does  not  limit  this  definition  to  any  one  lan- 
guage or  group  of  languages.  Madvig,  the  Copen- 
hagen professor,  whose  Latin  grammar  is  in  the  hands 
of  all  scholars,  says  that  "  Latin  grammar  teaches 
the  form  of  Latin  words  and  their  combination  in 
sentences." 

Dr.  Morris,  the  eminent  English  scholar  and  editor, 
lately  president  of  the  British  Philological  Society, 
Eays  in  his  short  English  grammar  that  "grammar 
tells  about  the  words  which  make  up  a  language ;  " 
and  in  his  principal  work  on  this  subject,  the  "  His- 
torical Outlines  of  the  English  Language,"  that 
"  grammar  treats  of  the  words  of  which  language  is 
composed,  and  of  the  laws  by  which  it  is  governed." 
Professor  Maetzner,  the  Colossus,  the  Briareus,  the 
Argus,  of  English  grammarians,  says,  "  Grammar,  or 
the  doctrine  of  language,  treats  of  the  laws  of  speech, 
and  in  the  first  place  of  the  word^  as  its  fundamental 
constituent  with  respect  to  its  matter  and  its  form; 
in  prosody,  or  the  doctrine  of  sounds,  and  in  mor- 
fhology,  or  the  doctrine  of  forms,  and  then  of  the 
combination  of  words  in  speech  ;  in  syntax,  or  the 
doctrine  of  the  joining  of  words  and  sentences." 

Finally,  Dr.  Alexander   Bain,  professor  in  Aber 

1  See  Wo~ds  and  their  Uses,  page  277. 


268  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

deen  University,  whose  "  Higher  English  Grammar  " 
is  of  well-established  repute,  in  the  companion  to 
that  work  wholly  abandons  the  attempt  to  define 
grammar,  saying,  "  Although  we  might  be  expected 
at  the  outset  to  define  the  scope  or  province  of  the 
subject  itself,  we  are  precluded  from  doing  so  by  the 
neglect  of  grammarians  to  observe  a  clear  line  of  dis- 
tinction between  grammar  and  the  allied  depart- 
ments, —  philology  on  one  hand,  and  rhetoric  on  the 
other."  Further  on,  however,  he  gives,  incidentally, 
but  very  clearly,  his  notion  of  grammar  in  the  follow- 
ing passage :  "  The  defining  of  parts  of  speech  is  a 
serious  affair.  The  whole  fabric  of  grammar  rests 
upon  the  classifying  of  words  according  to  their  func- 
tions in  the  sentence." 

Certainly  here  is  no  lack  of  variety  of  view  as  to 
the  functions  of  grammar.  But  all  of  these  eminent 
writers,  who  leave  the  generality  as  to  speaking  and 
writing  correctly,  agree  that  grammar  concerns  forms 
and  construction  ;  and  Professor  Whitney,  the  latest 
and  one  of  the  ablest  of  them,  limits  it  by  those  bound- 
aries. It  is  only  that  I  may  protect  myself  against 
the  charge  of  adopting  his  views  and  setting  them 
forth  as  my  own  that  I  mention,  what  many  of  my 
readers  well  know,  that  I  expressed  the  same  view 
some  years  before  the  publication  of  Professor  Whit- 
ney's "Essentials."  This  is  a  small  matter  ;  but  it  is 
not  too  small  to  be  brought  forward  now,  as  I  am 
about  to  give  my  own  definition  of  grammar,  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

Grammar  concerns  the  forms  of  words  and  their 
•Jependent  relations  in  the  sentence. 

It  will  be  observed  that  here  grammar  is  not  de- 
fined as  a  science,  or  as  an  art,  or  even  as  a  thing. 


"  ENGLISH   GRAMMAR,"   SO   CALLED.  2G9 

For  I  believe  grammar  to  be  neither  a  science  nor 
an  art ;  and  as  to  its  being  a  thing  I  am  somewhat 
puzzled.  A  grammar  book  is  a  thing ;  a  treatise  on 
grammar  is  a  thing;  but  grammar  itself,  in  the  ab- 
stract, —  what  is  it  ?  It  cannot  correctly  be  said  even 
to  be  a  record  of  usage  or  of  so-called  law.  The 
grammar  is  not  the  record  or  the  treatise ;  it  is  the 
sum  total  of  the  usage  and  the  so-called  law  which  is 
recorded  or  discussed. 

However  this  may  be,  I  have  never  pretended  to 
consider  grammar  from  any  other  point  of  view  than 
that  which  is  presented  in  my  definition ;  and  that,  I 
venture  to  say,  is  the  one  from  which  it  is  regarded, 
not  only  by  such  eminent  writers  on  language  as 
those  whom  I  have  cited,  but  by  educated  and  intel- 
ligent people  generally,  when  they  speak  of  good 
gi-ammar  and  bad  grammar.  I  cannot  justly  be 
gauged  by  any  other  measure.  Now,  it  is  this  gram- 
mar, that  which  concerns  the  forms  of  words  and 
their  dependent  relations  in  the  sentence,  that,  except- 
ing a  trifling  and  almost  inappreciable  residuum,  I 
have  declared  has  died  out  of  the  English  language. 
And  it  has  died  out  because  the  forms  of  words  upon 
which  it  depended  departed  long  ago.  With  a  mini- 
mum of  exception  in  pronouns,  in  one  case  of  nouns, 
and  a  few  persons  and  numbers  of  verbs,  English 
words  have  hut  one  form. 

Now,  where  words  have  not  varying  forms  indica- 
tive of  their  various  relations,  a  grammar  which  is 
dependent  upon  those  relations  is  obviously  impossi- 
ble.  And  it  is  only  such  a  grammar  that  admits  of 
those  requirements  of  agreement  and  government  and 
what  not  which  have  been  imposed  upon  English  by 
mistaken  scholars.     It  is  such  grammar  that  has  sc 


270  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

weighed  down  our  poor  beparsed  English-speaking 
people  that  when  their  freedom  was  proclaimed  a  few 
years  ago,  and  a  man  in  whom  some  of  them  put 
some  trust  dared  to  tell  them  that  they  might  fling  off 
their  incubus  in  the  name  of  great  Common  Sense, 
from  every  country  where  English  is  spoken  there 
t-^ame  back  to  him  cries  of  relief  and  utterances  of 
hearty  thanks,  which  have  not  yet  quite  died  away. 

A  view  of  grammar  which  demands  attention  be- 
cause, although  partial,  it  is  correct  as  far  as  it  goes, 
has  been  thus  presented  :  — 

"  The  ofRce  of  the  grammarian  is  to  state  what  the  lan- 
guage is,  and  to  know  what  the  language  is  he  must  learn 
what  is  the  established  usage  of  the  best  writers  and  speak- 
ers. If  he  should  find  it  to  be  the  established  usage  among 
the  best  writers  and  speakers  to  use  the  form  lis,  he  would 
have  to  state  the  fact ;  and  the  statement  would  form  a 
'  rule '  in  grammar." 

This  is  the  old  doctrine :  usage  is  law  in  language. 
To  a  certain  extent  it  is  sound  doctrine.  For  in  lan- 
guage we  must  conform  to  usage  whether  we  will  or 
not.  We  speak  to  be  understood ;  and  if  we  use 
words  with  which  our  hearers  are  unacquainted,  or 
constructions  to  which  they  are  not  accustomed,  we 
speak  to  them  more  or  less  in  an  unknown  tongue. 
But  usage  is  not  all  the  law  of  language.  There  is 
in  every  langiuige  a  normal  speech.  Reason  has 
Bome  sway  even  in  so  arbitrary  an  exercise  of  the 
mind  as  the  use  of  words.  It  is  possible  to  believe 
that  /  is  might  be  good  English ;  because  am  and  is 
express  existence  under  the  same  condition  of  time ; 
and  indeed  it  would  be  much  better  now  to  say  1 
is  than  to  speak  of  "  predicating  "  an  action  upon  a 
•act :  for  the  one  would  be  a  mere  disregard  of  one 


"  ENGLISH   GRAMMAR,"    SO   CALLED.  271 

of  the  scraps  and  remnants  of  English  grammar, 
which  would  not  in  any  way  obscure  the  speaker's 
meaning  ;  the  other  is  ridiculous  nonsense.  But  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  suppose  that,  for  example,  I  gone 
should  be  good  English,  unless  upon  the  assumption 
that  gone  had  another  meaning  as  to  time  than  that 
which  it  has  now,  —  an  assumption  futile  and  not 
worthy  of  consideration,  because  it  supposes  language 
entirelj'  subverted,  as  if  the  word  rose  should  mean 
an  elephant,  or  the  word  bread  a  stone,  and  so  forth. 
Nor  is  a  statement  of  the  usage  of  the  best  writers 
always  a  law  in  language,  although  it  may  be  called 
a  rule  hj  grammarians.  For  instance,  that  use  of 
what  the  grammarians  call  the  perfect  infinitive,  of 
which  "  he  would  have  liked  to  have  gone  "  is  an 
example,  is  illogical,  or,  in  simpler,  blunter  phrase, 
nonsensical.  But  I  having  pointed  this  out,  a  gram- 
marian, a  great  stickler  for  English  grammar,  de- 
murred at  the  term  illogical,  and  in  his  criticism  said 
that  he  had  before  him  "  a  work  which  treats  of  the 
very  point"  in  question,  and  that  this  use  "is  shown 
to  be  ungrammatical."  Now,  if  it  is  ungrammatical, 
it  must  be  so  because  it  is  in  defiance  of  a  "  rule," 
which  as  we  have  seen  is  a  statement  of  "  the  usage 
of  the  best  writers."  But  so  far  is  this  use  of  the 
perfect  infinitive  from  being  in  opposition  to  such  a 
rule  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  strictly  conforms  to  that 
usage  of  the  best  writers  upon  which  the  grammarians 
pay  all  rules  are  founded.  I  would  undertake  to  show, 
under  any  penalty  that  might  be  imposed  upon  me, 
that  the  construction  in  question  has  been  in  common 
and  constant  use  with  the  best  writers  in  English 
literature  from  the  Elizabethan  period  to  the  present 
iay.    Therefore,  according  to  the  grammarians  them 


272  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Selves,  "  he  would  have  liked  to  have  gone  "  is  not 
ungrammatical ;  it  is  merely  illogical,  or  nonsensical. 

Moreover,  in  this  definition,  so  commonly  given, 
that  grammar  is  a  methodical  setting  forth  of  the 
usage  of  the  best  writers,  there  is  a  term  which  itself 
needs  defining,  —  usage.  Their  usage  as  to  what? 
This  phrase,  "  usage  of  the  best  writers,"  etc.,  like 
the  other,  "  the  facts  of  a  language,"  is  vei-y  vague. 
Does  it  mean  usage  as  to  signification  of  words  ? 
That  is  very  important ;  but  no  one  nowadays  re- 
gards such  usage  as  a  part  of  grammar.  Is  it  usage 
as  to  the  form  of  sentences,  that  is,  whether  they  shall 
be  long  or  short,  direct  or  inverted,  and  so  forth  ? 
That  is  matter  of  taste ;  it  belongs  to  aesthetics,  to 
what  is  called  rhetoric,  as  I  am  sure  the  very  gram- 
marians would  admit.  The  usage  which  makes  gram- 
mar being  neither  usage  as  to  the  meaning  of  words 
nor  usage  as  to  the  rhetorical  form  of  speech,  it  can 
therefore  be  only  usage  as  to  the  relations  of  words, 
as  words,  in  the  sentence. 

Now  the  relations  of  words,  irrespective  of  their 
meaning  and  of  the  taste  with  which  they  are  used, 
must  depend  on  their  forms  ;  and  a  relation  of  form 
implies  inflection  for  the  sake  of  conformity.  This 
does  not  exist  in  the  English  language.  Upon  the 
absence  of  this  essential  part  of  formal  grammar  I 
have  remarked  heretofore  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses," 
and  I  shall  refer  to  the  subject  again  in  a  subsequent 
chapter. 

To  an  objection  which  has  been  made,  that  my 
protest  against  English  grammar  is  merely  a  matter 
of  terms,  and  that  what  I  call  illogical  other  people 
call  ungrammatical,  I  have  only  to  say  that  what  I 
call  illogical  other  people  may  call  ungrammatical. 


"  ENGLISH   GRAMMAR,"   SO   CALLED.  273 

or  Pharisaical,  or  pragmatical,  or  hyperbolical,  or 
anything  else  they  choose  to  call  it ;  and  if  it  is  illog- 
ical their  calling  will  make  no  difference ;  if  it  is 
not,  what  I  say  will  fall  to  the  ground.  Let  that 
pass;  I  remark  upon  it  only  for  the  sake  of  the  fol- 
lowing illustration  :  Some  two  or  three  years  ago 
a  highly-gifted  and  equally  well-instructed  lady,  a 
German,  wrote  to  me,  asking  a  question  as  to  Eng- 
lish usage.  Besides  being  an  accomplished  German 
scholar,  she  was  instructed  in  Latin  and  Greek,  and 
wrote  English  with  rare  idiomatic  grace  and  force.  I 
replied  to  her  question  —  a  very  simple  one  —  just  as 
any  English  scholar  to  whom  she  might  have  writ- 
ten must  have  replied.  Li  her  answer  she  wrote, 
"  This  seems  to  me  rather  a  lesson  in  logic  than  in 
grammar."  She  was  right.  Grammar  this  accom- 
plished and  thoughtful  person  found  in  Greek,  in 
Latin,  and  in  German  ;  in  English  she  found,  and 
could  find,  little  else  than  logic. 

Formal  grammar  is  at  war  with  common-sense ; 
and  I  repeat  that  by  formal  grammar  I  mean  that 
system  of  language  which  constructs  sentences  upon 
the  correspondence  of  the  forms  of  words,  or,  where 
there  are  no  forms  or  few,  upon  the  imaginary  rela- 
tions of  words,  instead  of  the  logical  order  of  thought. 
But  in  saying  that  grammar  is  at  war  with  common- 
sense,  I  do  not  mean  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  sense 
in  writing.  By  common-sense  we  mean  that  faculty 
of  perceiving  the  practical  relations  of  things  which 
IS  the  best  guide  through  life,  and  which  may  exist  in 
an  uninstructed  and  very  commonplace  mind,  and  be 
entirely  lacking  in  one  which  is  stored  with  learning 
or  gifted  with  creati  ve  genius.  This  faculty  exists  in 
a  greater  degree  in  some  races  tnan  in  others.  The 
18 


274  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Anglo-Saxon  race  are  distinguished  by  it ;  they  are 
preeminently  a  people  of  common-sense.  This  is  one 
reason  why  they,  more  than  any  other  people,  have 
discarded  formal  grammar. 

The  fact  that  formal  grammar  is  at  war  with  com- 
mon-sense is  shown  by  the  history  of  language.  It 
might  naturally  be  supposed  that  with  the  advance- 
ment of  civilization  and  the  perfection  of  literary 
Bkill  grammar  would  become  more  elaborate,  if  not 
more  complicated ;  that  as  life  became  more  com- 
plex and  society  more  polished,  language,  the  chief 
means  of  intellectual  development  and  social  prog- 
ress, would,  with  equal  steps,  become  more  complex 
and  elaborated.  The  contrary  is  the  case.  The  fur- 
ther we  go  back  in  the  history  of  the  world,  the 
more  complex  we  find  language,  the  more  minutely 
varied  and  numerous  are  the  forms  of  words,  the 
more  elaborate  is  the  construction  of  the  sentence. 
The  grammar  of  the  oldest  written  language  known 
—  the  Sanskrit  —  is  of  all  grammars  the  most  com- 
plicated, and  the  rivals  of  Sanskrit  in  this  respect  are 
the  languages  of  some  utterly  barbarous  peoples. 
The  supply  of  grammar  before  the  time  of  the 
Tower  of  Babel  must  have  been  something  quite 
inconceivable  at  the  present  day.  As  the  world  has 
advanced  it  has  gradually  laid  aside  the  unessential 
in  language  ;  it  has  dropped  forms  of  words  which 
expressed  minute  shades  of  meaning  as  to  time  and 
other  relations,  and  has  accomplished,  by  simpler 
methods,  the  ends  for  which  those  forms  were  made, 
the  change  always  being  destructive  of  formal  gram- 
mar. 

All  languages,  living  or  dead,  show  in  their  history 
Qie  progress  of  this  change ;  but  it  appears  most  in 


"ENGLISH   GRAMMAR,"    SO   CALLED.  27.S 

the  Anglo-Saxon  or  English  language,  in  Avliicli  for- 
mal grammar  might  be  said  to  have  entirely  disap- 
peared, but  for  a  very  small  number  of  "  survivals," 
"which  are  to  be  found  in  a  few  forms  of  pronouns 
and  verbs.  In  this  the  distinguishing  common-sense 
of  the  English  race  is  eminently  apparent.  It  is  not 
certain  that  this  deformalizing  of  the  English  lan- 
guage has  yet  reached  its  end  (for  example,  the  sub- 
junctive mood  is  almost  gone,  the  adverb  is  beginning 
to  yield  place  to  the  adjective,  and  the  distinction  be- 
tween who  and  whom  seems  to  be  disappearing,  and 
I  believe  will  disappear).  The  retention  of  the  few 
syntactical  forms  which  it  preserves  at  present  may 
be  due,  on  the  one  hand,  to  a  common-sense  view  of 
their  practical  usefulness,  or,  on  the  other,  in  pro- 
nouns at  least,  to  the  immobility  of  those  most  an- 
cient and  unchanged  of  all  the  elements  of  language. 
The  uselessness  of  the  study  of  what  is  called  Eng- 
lish grammar  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  none  of  the 
great  writers  and  speakers  of  English,  before  the 
present  century  at  least,  were  at  all  instructed  in  that 
—  by  pedagogues — much-vaunted  "branch"  of  ed- 
ucation. Our  great  poets,  philosophers,  statesmen, 
orators,  —  men  whose  words  are  the  glory  and  the 
priceless  heritage  of  the  English  race,  and  whose  use 
of  language  we  feebly  emulate  —  knew  nothing  of 
English  grammar.  Is  there  any  use  in  teaching  a 
method  of  speaking  and  writing  the  English  lan- 
guage correctly  that  was  utterly  unknown  to  Chau- 
cer, Spenser,  Sidney,  Marlowe,  Shakespeare,  Ben 
Jonson,  Bacon,  Fletcher,  Milton,  Pope,  Dryden, 
Locke,  Addison,  Steele,  Fielding,  Goldsmith,  Sterne, 
Burke,  Johnson,  and  ^"o  the  English  translators  of  the 
Bible  ?     And  what  English  short  of  that  of  Shake- 


276  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Bpeare  and  the  English  Bible  is  to  be  compared  with 
John  Bunyan's  ?  —  a  man  ignorant  not  only  of  Eng- 
lish grammar,  but  of  any  grammar  at  all. 

I  have  stopped  in  the  citation  of  my  examples  with 
the  writers  of  the  last  century  merely  because,  in  re- 
gard to  those  of  the  present,  I  am  less  sure  about 
their  school-boy  experience  in  learning  their  mother 
tongue,  and  because  it  was  not  long  before  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century  that  the  English-grammar  plague 
broke  out.  But  that  mental  malady  has  never  raged 
much  in  England,  at  least  among  those  who  receive 
the  higher  education  ;  and  it  is  probable  at  least  that 
Walter  Scott,  Byron,  Wordsworth,  Southey,  Macau- 
lay,  Carlyle,  and  Thackeray  received  no  special  in- 
struction in  English  grammar. 

This  assertion  may  surprise  some  who  know  that 
"  srrammar  schools  "  have  lonof  been  established  in 
England.  They  have  existed  there  for  centuries,  — 
from  the  time  of  Edward  VI.  at  least.  There  was  a 
grammar  school  at  Stratford-on-Avou,  to  which  Shake- 
speare probably  went.  But  these  grammar  schools 
had  nothing  to  do  with  English  grammar.  Tlie 
grammar  tliat  they  taught  was  the  Latin  grammar. 
Then  "grammar"  meant,  without  more  words,  Latin 
grammar.  The  generation  that  produced  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon  and  the  translators  of  the  Bible  would 
as  soon  have  thought  of  setting  up  schools  to  teach 
young  ducks  to  swim,  as  a  school  to  teach  English 
boys  the  art  of  speaking  and  -writing  the  English 
language  correctly.  In  "  The  Merry  Wives  of  Wind- 
sor "  Shakespeare  makes  the  clergyman,  Sir  Hugb 
Evans,  ask  little  William  Page  some  questions  ip 
"  his  accidence,"  at  the  request  of  his  mother,  who 
lays  that  his  father  complains  that  he  "profits  uotl^ 


"ENGLISH   GRAMMAR,"   SO   CALLED.  277 

fug  in  the  world  ;it  his  book ; "  and  his  accidence  is 
Latin,  his  book,  simply  his  Latin  grammar.^  The 
men  whom  Jack  Cade  tells  Lord  Say  it  will  be  proved 
to  his  face  he  has  about  him,  and  who  "  usually  talk 
of  a  noun  and  a  verb,  and  such  abominable  words  as 
no  Christian  ear  can  endure  to  hear,"  talked  only  of 
Latin  nouns  and  verbs. 

The  first  English  grammar  that  I  am  acquainted 
with  was  written  by  Ben  Jonson,  who  wrote  it,  I  be- 
lieve, after  Shakespeare's  time,  and  left  it  unfinished. 
After  that  there  were  various  English  grammars 
written,  but  they  were  not  for  the  use  of  schools. 
Knowledge  of  the  construction  of  language  was  ob- 
tained in  England,  until  a  very  recent  period,  only 
through  the  medium  of  the  Latin  grammar  or  the 
Greek.  Reynolds  the  dramatist,  who  wrote  in  Lon- 
don in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century  and  the 
beginning  of  this,  tells  us  in  his  autobiography  that 
at  Westminster  school  he  "  studied  the  Latin  but 
never  the  English  grammar." 

"  America  "  has  been  the  great  field  of  labor  in 
English  grammar  ;  and  the  first  great  English  gram- 
mar, the  one  by  which  school-boydom  has  been  chiefly 
oppressed,  was  written  by  an  "  American,"  Lindley 

1  I  have  been  asked  if  the  study  of  Latin  does  not  teach  English  gram- 
mar. No,  except  in  so  far  as  there  must  be  some  relation  between  all  lan- 
guages, because  they  are  all  varieties  of  human  speech.  It  does  not:  first, 
for  the  all-sufficient  aud  never-too-often-to-be-repeated  reason  that  there  is 
no  English  grammar  to  be  taught;  next,  because  the  Latin  language  and 
i&e  English  are  diametrically  unlike  in  their  structure,  and  you  cannot 
teach  the  construction  or  the  use  of  one  thing  by  training  a  pupil  to  the 
construction  and  the  use  of  another  altogether  different.  Indeed,  it  has 
been  the  curse  of  the  teaching  of  English  by  grammars  and  by  school- 
niasters  in  the  last  seventy-five  years  or  more, and  particularly  in  "Amer- 
ica," that  the  methods,  the  spirit,  and  the  terminology  of  Latin  syntax 
have  been  transferred  and  applied  to  the  English  tongue.  As  well  migh* 
%  horse  undertake  to  teach  an  eagle  to  fly,  or  a  dolphin  to  swim. 


278  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Murraj'^,  the  Philadelphia  Quaker.  The  influence  of 
this  book  and  its  imitations  in  our  country  has  not 
been  happy.  Our  English  has  suffered  from  it.  We 
have  produced  some  writers  who  use  the  English  lan- 
guage with  freedom  and  inborn  mastery  ;  but  the 
mass  of  our  free-and-independent,  public-school-edu- 
cated "American"  citizens  would,  I  believe,  have 
written  better  and  spoken  better,  more  naturally, 
easily,  forcibly,  idiomatically,  if  English  grammar- 
books  had  been  unknown. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

HOW  IT   IS   THAT  ENGLISH    HAS  NO   GRAMMAR. 

Among  the  eminent  writers  of  English  who  were 
utterly  untaught  in  English  grammar  is  one  whom  I 
have  merely  mentioned  by  name,  but  whose  position 
in  literature  has  a  peculiar  and  impressive  signifi- 
cance in  connection  with  our  present  subject.  This 
is  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  Sidney  is  one  of  the  great 
writers  of  the  early  period  of  modern  English  ;  mod- 
ern English  having  formed  itself  only  in  the  genera- 
tion before  that  in  which  he  lived,  and  having  since 
been  modified  in  no  particular  that  is  essential,  im- 
portant, or  even  remarkable.  Elizabeth,  whose  chief 
virtue,  whose  almost  only  virtue,  was  that  she  knew  a 
man  when  she  found  him,  called  Sidney  "  the  jewel 
of  her  times  ;  "  and  well  she  might  so  call  him.  He 
was  simply  the  highest-minded,  truest-hearted,  and 
most  accomplished  English  gentleman  of  his  period. 
He  was  a  writer,  although  not  so  by  profession.  He 
wi'ote  —  as  Raleigh  and  other  gentlemen  and  noble- 
men of  that  time  wrote — with  no  other  object  than 
the  expression  of  thought  and  feeling,  or  the  accom- 
plishment of  some  purpose.  His  romance  "  Arcadia  " 
is  tedious  reading  to  us  of  nowadays,  and  I  am  not 
sure  that  it  was  not  tedious  to  those  for  whom  it 
was  written.  It  went  indeed  through  many  editions 
in  the  course  of  a  century,  but  romances  then  were 
scarce,  and  some  of  them  were  veiy  much  longer  and 
much  more  tedious  than  Sidney's. 


280  KVtRY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

The  tediousness,  however,  which  makes  the  "  Arca- 
dia" now  unreadable,  except  as  a  study  in  English 
literature,  does  not  at  all  depend  upon  the  English  in 
vrhich  it  is  written,  —  than  which  nothing  could  be 
better.  Its  style  is  quaint,  formal,  antiquated,  and 
prolix  ;  but  this  was  a  mere  consequence  of  the  fash- 
ion of  the  da}-,  —  a  fashion  which  prevailed  chiefly, 
if  not  only,  in  prose.  It  did  not  appear  in  Sidney's 
poetr}^ ;  for  Sidney,  although  he  did  not  set  up  as  a 
poet,  was  one.  In  this  very  "  Arcadia  "  is  the  follow- 
ing sonnet,  which  is  not  only  for  its  thought  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  in  our  literature,  but  is  also  re- 
markable for  its  fine  idiomatic  use  of  English  :  — 

"With  how  sad  steps,  O  Moon,  thou  climb'st  the  skies, 
How  silently,  and  with  how  wan  a  face! 
What!  may  it  be,  that  even  in  heavenly  place 
That  busy  archer  his  sharp  arrows  tries  ? 
Sure,  if  that  long  with  love  acquainted  eyes 
Can  judge  of  love,  thou  feel'st  a  lover's  case; 
1  read  it  in  thj'  looks,  tliy  languished  grace 
To  me  that  feel  the  like  thy  state  discries 
Then  even  of  fellowship,  0  moon!  tell  me 
Is  constant  love  deemed  there  but  want  of  wit? 
Are  beauties  there  as  proud  as  here  they  be  ? 
Do  they  above  love  to  be  loved,  and  yet 
Those  lovers  scorn  whom  that  love  doth  possess  ? 
Do  they  call  virtue,  there,  ungratefulness?  "  * 

Then  there  is  another,  beginning  ,  — 

"Come,  sleep,  O  sleep!  the  certain  knot  of  peace. 
The  bating  piece  of  wit,  the  balm  of  woe, 
The  poor  man's  wealth,  the  prisoner's  release, 
The  indifferent  judge  between  the  high  and  low." 

The  man  who  wrote  these  verses  wrote  in  the  great 
English ;  English  wliicli  is  not  of  a  time  or  a  period, 
vehich  has  no  fashion,  old  or  new,  but  which  is  for  al3 
time. 

1  As  to  the  construction  and  meaning  of  the  last  line,  see   Wordt  an* 
lAetr  Umci,  page  291. 


HOW    IT    IS   THAT    E^'GLISH    HAS    NO   GRAMJIAR.     281 

But  Sidney's  most  celebrated  literary  performance 
is  his  "  Apology  for  Poetry."  This  essay  is  remarka- 
ble as  being  the  first  critical  essay  worthy  of  the  name 
in  our  literature.  And  not  only  is  it  the  first,  but  it 
remains  to  the  present  day  one  of  the  very  best.  It 
sometimes  happens  that  the  man  who  conceives  a 
thing,  and  produces  the  fii'st  of  its  kind,  attains 
therein  an  excellence  which  may  afterward  be  ri- 
valed, but  will  hardly  be  surpassed.  There  is  to  this 
day  no  more  beautiful  printing  than  that  which  came 
from  the  first  printing-office  in  the  world  ;  and  Gas- 
pard  da  Salo,  who  made  the  first  real  violin,  wrought 
it  upon  a  model  to  which,  after  years  of  deviation, 
the  art  returned  in  the  hands  of  that  skillful  and  judi- 
cious workman,  Stradivarius. 

In  Sidney's  "  Apology  for  Poetry,"  moreover,  there 
is  a  passage  which  has  a  direct  bearing  on  the  sub- 
ject of  pretended  English  grammar.  Sidney,  like  all 
men  of  his  time,  and  of  more  than  a  century  follow- 
ing, was  entirely  uninstructed  in  English  grammar ; 
for  then,  as  I  have  before  said,  no  English  grammar 
had  been  written ;  none  was  taught  in  grammar 
schools,  and  the  English  language  itself  was  looked 
upon  with  scorn  by  professed  men  of  letters,  and 
slightingly  called  the  vulgar  tongue,  —  meaning  the 
tongue  of  the  common  people.  The  passage  to  which 
I  refer  is  the  following.  Speaking  of  English,  he 
says  :  — 

"  I  know  some  will  say  it  is  a  mingled  language.  And 
why  not  so  much  the  better,  taking  the  best  of  both  the 
uther  ?  Another  will  say  that  it  wanteth  [lacks]  grammer. 
Nay,  truly,  it  hath  that  praise  that  it  wanteth  not  [does  not 
need]  grammer ;  for  grammer  it  might  have,  but  it  needes 
t  not ;  being  so  easie  of  itselfe,  and  so  voyd  of  those  cum 


282  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH, 

Dersome  differences  of  cases,  genders,  moodes,  and  tenses, 
which  I  think  was  a  peece  of  the  Tower  of  Babilon's  curse 
that  a  man  should  be  put  to  schoole  to  learne  his  mother 
tongue.  But  for  the  uttering  sweetly  and  properly  the  con- 
ceits of  the  minde,  which  is  the  end  of  speech,  that  hath  it 
equally  with  any  other  tongue  in  the  world  ;  and  is  particu- 
larly happy  in  compositions  of  two  or  three  words  together, 
neere  the  Greeke,  far  beyond  the  Latine,  which  is  one  of 
the  greatest  beauties  can  be  in  a  language." 

The  "  Apology  for  Poetry  "  was  published  in  1595, 
and  here  we  have  the  recognition  nearly  three  hun- 
dred years  ago  of  the  fact  in  philology  that  English 
is  a  grammarless  tongue.  Sidney  says,  it  "  wanteth," 
that  is,  it  lacks,  grammar ;  and  not  only  so,  but  with 
a  clear  and  admirable  insight  he  says  that  it  "  hath 
tha,t  praise  that  it  wanteth  not  grammar,"  that  is,  has 
no  need  of  grammar.  He  saw  that  in  its  lack  of 
grammar  was  the  glory  and  the  strengtli  of  the  Eng- 
lish language,  as  well  as  its  easy  fitness  to  the  every- 
day uses  of  common  men.  There  is  no  other  such 
language  in  the  world,  nor  has  there  ever  been  such 
a  language.  Sidney  goes  on  to  say  why  it  is  that 
English  has  no  grammar :  that  it  is  because  it  is  "  void 
of  those  cumbersome  differences  of  cases,  genders, 
moods,  and  tenses."  And  then  he  puts  the  English 
common-sense  view  of  the  subject,  that  "  it  was  a 
piece  of  the  Tower  of  Babylon's  curse  that  a  man 
should  be  put  to  school  to  learn  Ids  mother  tongue."" 
How  little  a  man  needed  such  schooling  to  use  his 
mother  tongue  with  clearness,  with  strength,  and  with 
expression,  Sidney  showed  in  this  very  essay,  the 
••  Apology  for  Poetry,"  and  in  various  passages  of 
his  other  writings.  Entirely  apart  from  the  poetical 
beauty  of  the  thought,  in  the  verses  quoted  above, 


HOW    IT    IS    THAT    ENGLISH    HAS    NO   GRAMMAR.     283 

will  any  one  venture  to  say  that  such  a  use  of  Eng- 
lish can  be  taught  by  daily  parade  in  school,  accord- 
uig  to  the  tactics  of  those  drill-masters  in  language, 
Lindley  Murray  and  Goold  Brown,  or  even  William 
Cobbett  ?  1 

The  reason,  therefore,  why  English  has  no  gram- 
mar is  that  it  is  uncumbered  with  cases,  genders, 
moods,  and  tenses,  and,  we  may  almost  say,  with  gram- 
matical person.  For  these  are  the  essence  of  gram- 
mar, or  rather,  I  should  say,  its  conditions  ;  without 
them  there  can  be  no  grammar.  When  people  say 
good  grammar  and  bad  grammar,  they  refer  only 
to  the  forms  of  words  and  the  construction  of  sen- 
tences. 

Grammar  has  to  do  with  the  correct  form  and  cor- 
relation of  words.  But  in  English  there  is  no  form, 
and  consequently  no  correlation  dependent  upon  form 
that  has  any  noteworthy  influence  upon  the  construc- 
tion of  the  sentence.  Let  candid  objectors  wait  a 
little  before  they  spring  up  to  reply.  I  said  "  note- 
worthy influence,"  meaning  by  this  phrase  to  allow 
for  certain  small  remnants  of  grammar  which  are  to 
be  found  in  the  English  language. 

For  English  had  once  a  grammar.  When  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking people  were  rude,  ignorant,  savage,  and 
heathen,  without  literature,  without  any  semblance  of 
fine  art,  knowing  little  even  of  the  useful  arts,  living 
\n  hovels,  tilling  the  ground  in  the  rudest  manner,  and 

1  This  passage  of  Sidney's  I  had  either  entirely  forgotten,  or  had  never 
observed  until  after  the  publication  not  onlj'  of  my  essay,  The  Grammar- 
less  Tongue,  but  of  the  first  edition  of  Words  and  their  Uses.  In  the 
second,  I  gladly  found  mj'self  under  the  necessity  of  recognizing  (as  I  di"^ 
in  the  preface  to  that  edition)  that  in  these  few  lines  I  had  had  an  illustri- 
»us  predecessor  in  what  not  only  most  others,  but  even  I  myself,  had  re- 
rarded  as  a  peculiar  view  (and  it  certainly  was  an  original  view)  )f  th« 
Cngiish  language. 


284  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

having  a  money  price  for  man's  life,  their  language  had 
a  grammar  which  surpassed  in  complexity  that  of  the 
Romans,  and  almost  equaled  that  of  the  Greeks. 
But  as  they  became  civilized  they  rid  themselves  of 
this  complexity  ;  and  when  they  had  reached  the  point 
at  which  they  were  about  to  produce  a  Bacon  and  a 
Shakespeare,  they  had,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
freed  themselves  from  it  entirely.  Not  that  civiliza- 
tion was  the  direct  agent  in  producing  this  result, 
which  was  due  to  several  causes,  the  enumeration  of 
which  is  not  to  our  present  purpose,  but  that  the  grad- 
ual casting  aside  of  the  trammels  of  grammar  did 
accompany  advancement  in  civilization,  and  in  partic- 
ular did  accompany  the  development  of  English  lit- 
erature into  the  splendors  of  the  Elizabethan  era. 
Therefore,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  this  absence  of 
grammar  is  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  intellectual 
development  or  with  the  highest  form  of  literary  ex- 
pression. Indeed,  as  I  have  mentioned  before,  this 
simplification  of  verbal  forms  and  this  doing  away  of 
the  correlation  that  depends  upon  those  forms,  or,  in 
other  words,  the  laying  aside  of  grammar,  seems  to  be 
a  tendency  of  language.  But  in  no  other  language 
has  this  tendency  been  so  strong  and  so  overpow'er- 
ing  as  in  English. 

Of  the  complex  grammar  which  once  entangled  the 
speakers  of  English  there  remain  a  few  vestiges,  such 
as  some  of  the  philosophei's  of  the  present  day  have 
chosen  to  call  "  survivals,"  but  which,  it  seems  to  me. 
might  better  be  called  survivors.  Whoever  will  ob- 
serve will  see  that  in  all  the  examples  given  by  the 
followers  of  Lindley  Murray  to  show  that  the  Eng 
lish  language  has  grammar,  the  writers  use  pronouns 
The  reason  for  this  is  that  they  could  use  no  othet 


HOW   IT    IS    THAT    ENGLISH    HAS  NO   GRAMMAR.     285 

W^ords.  They  are  driven  to  /,  and  me,  and  Mm^  and 
Jier,  and  whom.  For  our  pronouns  and  two  or  three 
verbal  forms  are  the  last  refuge  of  the  once  dominant 
and  all-pervading  English  grammar.  Pronouns  have 
nominative  cases  and  objective  cases  ;  but  nouns  have 
not.  But  pronouns  are  so  few  in  number  that  you 
may  count  them  on  your  fingers  (those  who  choose 
to  count  them  may),  whereas  nouns  are  numbered  by 
the  tens  of  thousands,  and  form,  as  far  as  the  subject 
and  object  of  action  are  concerned,  the  whole  of  the 
language,  to  all  intents  and  purposes.  Could  any- 
thing be  more  unreasonable,  more  inconsistent  with 
English  common-sense,  than  the  assumption  that  be- 
cause in  some  half  a  score  of  peculiar  words  there  re- 
main vestiges  of  grammar  therefore  there  is  a  gram- 
mar for  the  whole  language,  of  which  these  form 
hardly  an  appreciable  part  ? 

At  the  risk  of  repeating  what  must  be  known,  or 
once  have  been  known,  to  many  of  my  readers,  I 
must  remark  that,  according  to  the  grammarians,  a 
simple  sentence  is  composed  of  two  parts,  the  subject 
and  the  predicate.  The  grammatical  subject  is  the 
word  which  expresses  the  person  or  thing  of  which 
action  or  existence  or  enduring  is  predicated ;  the 
predicate  is  the  word  which  expresses  that  action,  ex- 
istence, or  enduring.  Examples  of  this  sort  of  sen- 
tence are.  Time  flies,  God  exists,  Ireland  famishes. 
But  although  a  subject  and  a  verb  are  technically  a 
sentence,  it  seems  to  me  that  to  the  ungrammaticai 
mind  the  simplest  form  of  a  perfect  sentence  is  that 
in  which  the  verb  has  an  object.  The  object  of 
the  verb  is,  however,  technically  a  part  of  the  predi- 
cate. Thus,  in  the  sentence,  Women  love  children, 
*  women  "  is  the  grammatical  subject,  and  the  predi- 


286  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

cate  is  "  love  children."  In  such  sentences  the  verb 
has  been  called  a  copula  by  some  grammarians,  a  dis- 
tinction which  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  respect.  But 
however  this  may  be,  for  our  present  purpose  we  have 
only  to  consider  the  fact  that  in  what  is  known  as 
modern  English,  this  relation  of  subject,  predicate, 
and  object  is  a  purely  logical  relation,  that  is,  a  rela- 
tion of  reason,  of  thought,  and  it  is  indicated  chiefly 
by  the  succession  in  which  the  thoughts  are  presented. 
In  languages  having  grammar,  which  depends  upon 
the  relations  of  words  rather  than  upon  those  of  the 
thoughts  expressed  by  words,  the  succession  of  the 
words  has  comparatively  little  to  do  with  the  con- 
struction of  the  sentence,  and  still  less  with  its  mean- 
ing. It  has  been  found  by  English-speaking  people 
that  an  objective  form  or  case  of  the  noun,  differenc- 
ing it  from  the  nominative,  is  altogether  unnecessary 
for  the  indication  of  its  objective  condition,  that  is,  to 
show  that  it  is  the  object  of  action.  We  know  just 
as  well  when  we  say  "  Women  love  children  "  that  it 
is  meant  that  children  are  the  object  of  women's  love 
as  if  the  word  "children  "  had  a  form  peculiar  to  the 
expression  of  this  objective  relation  ;  that  is,  as  if  it 
were  in  the  objective  case.^ 

In  languages  that  have  grammar  there  are  other 
cases,  which  express  by  the  forms  of  words  senses  and 
relations  which  in  English  are  expressed  by  little 
ivords  which  the  grammarians  have  named  preposi- 
tions. There  is  the  dative  case,  which  expresses 
%^hat  in  English  we  express  by  prefixing  "  to "  or 
"  for  "  to  the  noun.  But  we  also  do  without  the  prep- 
psition,  particularly  in  the  case  of  pronouns.     Even 

1  I  must  Iiere  again  refer  the  reader  to  Chapters    IX.  and  X.  of  Wonk 
9ttd  their  U»e». 


HOW   IT    I&    THAT   ENGLISH   HAS   NO   GRAMMAR.      287 

then,  however,  although  we  drop  the  preposition,  we 
do  not  assume  a  case  form.  For  example,  "  I  gave  it 
him,"  that  is,  to  him;  "I  got  her  a  doll,"  that  is,  for 
her;  and  Desdemona's  exclamation,  which,  to  use  her 
father's  phrase,  "made  her  half  the  wooer,"  when 
she  told  Othello  that  "  she  wished  that  heaven  had 
made  her  such  a  man,"  that  is,  had  made  for  her  such 
a  man.^  The  order.  Boil  me  an  egg,  does  not  indi- 
cate that  the  speaker  is  an  unhatched  chicken  crying 
out  to  be  cooked  ;  nor  in  reading  1  Kings  xiii.  13, 
"  And  he  said  unto  his  sons.  Saddle  me  the  ass,"  is 
the  emphasis  warranted,  in  the  next  sentence,  "  So 
they  saddled  him,"  etc.  One  English  grammarian, 
whose  perceptions  have  cari-ied  him  beyond  the  point 
of  an  objective  case  "  governed  by  for  understood," 
but  no  further,  declares  that  in  such  sentences  we 
have  examples  of  an  English  dative  case.  "  In  what 
case  is  the  pronoun,"  he  asks,  "if  not  in  the  dative?  " 
In  no  case  at  all,  most  excellent  grammarian.  There 
is  simply  a  dative  sense  expressed  by  the  meaning  of 
the  words  and  by  their  order.  When  shall  we  be 
rid  of  this  notion  that  an  English  noun  must  be  in 
Bome  case  ?  There  is  the  ablative  case,  the  sense  of 
which  we  express  by  prefixing  with,  in,  from,  or  b^/ 
to  the   noun.     These   prepositions,   however,  cannot 

1  In  a  criticism  of  this  chapter  on  its  first  publication,  the  following 
question  was  asked  with  sarcastic  triumph :  "  Does  the  author  of  Shake- 
tpeare's  Scholar  reall}'  think  that  Desdemona  was  guilty  (or  so  represented) 
of  the  indelicacy  of  saying  to  the  Moor  '  she  wished  that  heaven  had  made 
[for]  her  such  a  man  '  V  "  If  mj'  censor  had  read  the  book  which  he  uses  tc 
feather  his  shaft,  he  would  know  that  the  construction  of  the  passage  at 
which  he  scoffs  was  therein  elaborately  set  forth  as  the  onl}'  one  admissible  •, 
«nd  the  manner  of  his  presenting  the  subject  will  excuse  my  saying  that 
linee  then  (1854)  this  view  of  the  passage  has  oeen  generally,  if  not  uni- 
versally, taken,  not  only  in  England  and  in  France,  but  in  Germany. 
Gervinus  sajs,  "With  tiiis  hint  the  maiden  proffered  herself  to  him." 
Ed.  1862.)  ' 


288  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

be  omitted  in  the  expression  of  this  sense ;  the  reason 
of  which  seems  to  be  that  the  English  language  in 
its  earliest  form,  which  some  call  Anglo-Saxon  and 
some  Old  English,  had  a  dative  case,  but  no  ablative.^ 
The  dative  sense  in  the  simple  noun  after  the  verb 
is  a  remnant,  a  "  survival  "  or  survivor,  of  the  old 
grammar.  Thus  we  say,  "  I  gave  Charles  an  apple," 
that  is,  I  gave  to  Charles,  etc. ;  but  we  cannot  saj', 
"  I  went  Charles  to  church,"  meaning,  I  went  with 
Charles,  etc.  We  must  use  the  preposition,  as  our 
forefathers  used  it  for  centuries.  In  the  other  phrase 
we  use  no  preposition,  yet  we  retain  the  dative  sense, 
which  they  indicated  by  a  dative  case  or  form  of  the 
noun,  which  we  have  found  unnecessary.  Again, 
in  Latin  and  in  Greek  there  is  a  form  or  case  of  the 
noun  expressive  of  calling,  summoning,  appealing, 
named  the  vocative ;  but  this  does  not  appear  even 
in  the  earliest  form  of  English.  We  find  when  we 
Bay,  "  Tom,  come  here  !  "  or  call,  "  Mary  !  Mary  !  " 
or  demand,  "  What  do  you  mean,  Charles  ?  "  that  it 
is  not  at  all  necessary  to  put  Tom  and  Mary  and 
Charles  (that  is,  the  words,  not  the  persons)  in  a  pe- 
culiar form  or  case.  The  meaning  is  perfectly  plain 
without  a  change  of  form  or  inflection  expressive  of 
that  sense,  which  would  be  a  grammatical  process. 

We  have,  however,  one  case  in  English,  that 
which  expresses  possession  or  a  relation  of  pertaining. 
This  case  is  called  in  Latin  grammar,  and  in  Greek, 
the  genitive  case  ;  we  call  it  the  possessive.  It  has 
always  existed  in  English  :  first  with  the  ending  as, 
then  gs,  and  now  (that  is,  for  about  the  last  three 
hundred  years)  with  a  suppression  of  the  vowel  in- 

1  We  may  say,  Depart  the  house,  for  Depart  from  the  house ;  bat  ii 
tuch  cases  depart  is  used  for  leave  or  quit. 


HOW  IT  IS  THAT  ENGLISH  HAS  NO  GRAMMAR.  289 

dicated  by  an  apostrophe.  Smitlias  became  Smithes, 
then  Smith's.  This  possessive  case  is  a  distinctive 
trait  of  English  among  modern  languages.  For  it  is 
remarkable  that  the  modern  Latin  or  Romanic  tongues 
have  no  possessive  case,  although  in  the  Latin  —  their 
Bource  —  it  was  one  of  the  most  strikingly  and  strongly- 
developed  forms  of  the  noun  and  the  adjective.  In 
French,  Italian,  and  Spanish  the  possessive  or  per- 
taining idea  is  expressed  by  the  preposition  de.  Still 
stranger  is  it  that  although  this  possessive  form  as  or 
es  is  Teutonic,  and  belongs  by  inheritance  to  the 
whole  Teutonic  family  of  languages,  in  German  — 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  important  of  these  lan- 
guages—  it  is  dropped  in  what  is  called  the  modern 
declension  of  nouns,  and  appears  only  in  the  genitive 
of  the  article,  des.  Some  German  nouns  retain  the 
old  normal  form  of  the  possessive  in  the  singular,  but 
drop  it  in  the  plural. 

In  English,  too,  we  can  use  the  preposition  of,  cor- 
responding to  the  Romanic  de.  We  can  say  "  the 
top  of  the  mountain  "  as  well  as  "  the  mountain's 
top."  But  a  Frenchman  must  say  le  sommet  de  la 
montagne  ;  and  not  only  so,  but  he  must  say  le  cha- 
'peau  de  nion  fils,  the  hat  of  my  boy.  This  causes 
K  formality  and  an  elaboration  of  the  thought  to  be 
conveyed,  which  loses  a  simple  strength  that  we  have 
in  English,  and  also  adds,  to  us  at  least,  an  incon- 
gruity of  form  with  sense  which  approaches  the  ab- 
Burd.  As  an  illustration  of  the  former,  suppose  that 
in  this  splendid  passage, 

"And  jocund  daj' 
Stands  tiptoe  on  the  misty  mountain  tops," 

■Shakespeare  had  chosen  to  write  "  the  misty  mount- 
ain's top,"  the  effect  wr  uld  hare  been  nearly  the 

19 


290  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

same.  But  suppose  that  in  that  case  he  had  been 
obliged  to  write  "  the  misty  top  of  the  mountain," 
how  much  of  the  elevation  and  the  irapressiveness 
of  the  passage  would  have  been  lost !  On  the  other 
hand,  think  of  being  obliged  always  to  say  "  the  hat 
of  my  boy,"  instead  of  "  my  boy's  hat  "  ! 

This  remnant  of  inflection  has  not,  however,  any 
appreciable  effect  in  strengthening  or  multiplying  the 
bonds  of  English  grammar.  In  regard  to  it  there 
seems  nothing  necessary  to  be  said  but  that  the  inflec- 
tion of  a  noun  in  es,  or  its  contraction  's,  expresses 
possession,  or  pertaining,  in  regard  to  the  object  ex- 
pressed by  the  following  word  or  phrase.  For  the 
object  of  possession,  or  that  which  pertains,  is  not 
necessarily  a  thing.  We  may  say,  "  John's  hat  is 
black,"  or  "  John's  going  to  Washington  is  unfortu- 
nate." In  the  first  case  the  thing  pertaining  to  John 
is  a  material  object,  a  hat ;  in  the  last  the  thing  per- 
taining to  him  is  an  act,  his  going  to  Washington. 

The  only  real  grammatical  question  raised  by  the 
possessive  case  is  that  as  to  the  double  possessive,  as, 
"  that  horse  of  Alexander's,"  "  that  bust  of  Csesar's." 
This  I  pass  by  at  the  present,  my  object  now  being 
merely  to  show  to  what  degree  and  in  what  manner 
English  is  free  from  the  trammels  of  grammar. 

An  objection  has  been  made  to  the  view  of  English 
grammar  here  presented,  which  is  clearly  enough  put 
.n  the  question  asked  by  more  than  one  objector,  if  I 
intend  to  take  the  position  that  grammar  is  the  same 
as  inflection,  or,  in  the  words  of  one  of  them,  "en- 
tirely synonymous  "  with  it.  I  do  not ;  and  the  ques- 
tion surprises  me.  It  asks  if  the  cause,  or  rather  the 
condition,  of  a  thing  is  identical  or  "  synonymous  ' 
with  the  thing  itself.     Inflections  are  not  grammar 


HOW   IT    IS    THAT    ENGLISH   HAS   NO   GRAMMAR.     291 

but  grammar  is  chiefly  the  consequence  of  inflections. 
And  here  I  must  remind  the  reader  of  the  sense  in 
which  I  use  "  grammar,"  which  is  the  common,  gen- 
erally accepted  sense,  as  to  which  I  must  refer  to 
former  explanations.  This  difficulty  as  to  the  defi- 
nition of  terms  is  a  great  obstacle  to  discussion.  I 
know  some  very  able  and  mentally  well-eqviipped 
men  who  decline  discussion  altogether,  because  they 
Bay  that  the  first  condition  of  it,  exact  agreement  as 
to  the  meaning  of  essential  terms,  does  not  exist,  and 
cannot  be  brought  about  without  a  preliminary  dis- 
cussion', which  would  postpone  the  main  argument 
indefinitely.  To  return  to  our  subject.  Grammar  in 
any  other  sense  than  that  which  deals  with  the  rela- 
tions of  words,  or,  in  the  phrase  of  one  of  my  gram- 
marians, "  the  correct  form  and  correlation  of  words," 
we  here  have  nothing  to  do  with.  But  without  in- 
flection, of  what  constructional  importance  can  the 
form  of  words  be  ?  and  then  can  words  which  have 
but  one  form  have  correlation  ?  The  obvious  answer 
to  both  these  questions  seems  to  me  to  be,  None. 
Therefore  it  is  that  in  English  there  can  be  no  gram- 
mar, or  none  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  there  being 
in  our  language  only  a  few  remnants  of  inflection, 
and  consequently  of  correlation  of  words. 

As  to  gender,  which  is  one  of  the  most  imjwrtant 
elements  of  this  formal  grammar,  there  is  not  a  ves- 
tige of  it  in  the  English  language.  English  has  no 
gender.  There  is  not  an  English  noun  or  adjective 
that  has  gender.  There  are,  indeed,  English  words 
which  express  distinctions  of  sex ;  but  sex  has  noth- 
hig  to  do  with  grammatical  gender.  Sex  is  some- 
thing that  pertains  to  and  distinguishes  living  things ; 
gender,  grammatical  gender,  belongs  to  words ;  not 


292  •  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

to  the  things  which  the  words  mean,  but  to  the  worda 
themselves.  Thus  in  French  table  is  feminine ;  not 
that  a  table  is  regarded  by  the  French  people  as  hav- 
ing sex  ;  not  even  that  it  is  personified,  as  the  moon 
is  when  we  say  she  rises,  but  that  the  word,  the 
combination  of  letters  t-a-b-l-e,  is  in  French  of  the 
feminine  gender,  so  that  la,  a  combination  of  letters 
meaning  "  the,"  which  is  also  feminine,  must  be  used 
with  it,  and  to  say  le  table  (le  also  meaning  "  the," 
just  Hi  la  does)  is  bad  grammar.  Now  in  English 
we  say  "  the  man  "  as  well  as  "  the  woman,"  using 
the  same  article  in  both  instances,  because  our  words 
have  no  gender,  even  when  they  express  distinctions 
of  sex.^  And  in  a  Latin  sentence  every  word  directly 
connected  with  another  must  be  thus  adapted  to  it  in 
form,  sometimes  of  gender,  at  others  of  case  and 
person.  This  is  the  essential  part  of  grammar,  and 
it  is  the  attempt  to  transfer  the  rules  and  the  phrases 
which  pertain  to  this  grammar  to  our  simply  formed, 
but  therefore  none  the  less  rich  and  strong,  mother 
tongue  that  has  produced  that  monstrous  hybrid, 
called  English  gi-ammar. 

In  the  verb  English  is  almost  entirely  void,  as  Sir 
Philip  Sidney  said,  of  moods  and  tenses,  and  is  hardly 
less  so  of  number  and  person.  We  say,  for  example, 
T,  you,  we,  or  they  love ;  only  for  the  third  person  sin- 
gular do  we  make  any  difference  in  the  verb, —  he, 
she,  or  it  loves.  So  I,  you,  we,  they  have  ;  he,  she,  or 
it  has.  A  like  simplicity  of  structure  and  sameness  of 
form  runs  through  moods  and  tenses.  The  subjunctive 
mood,  which  differs  a  very  little  from  the  indicative, 

1  That  sex  has  nothing  to  do  with  gender  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  thaj 
in  Latin  word  most  expressive  of  the  female  sex  is  of  the  masculine  geu 
•er. 


HOW   IT    IS    THAT    ENGLISH   HAS   NO    GRAMMAR.     293 

ts  passing  rapidly  out  of  use.  There  is  no  impera- 
tive  mood  ;  it  is  the.  same  as  the  indicative.  Qo  is 
indicative  and  imperative.  It  is  the  connection  in 
which  it  is  used,  the  tone  in  which  it  is  spoken,  that 
gives  it  an  indicative  or  an  imperative  meaning.  In 
English  there  is  no  passive  voice.  We  express  pas- 
sivity, of  course,  but  we  do  it  by  making  a  little  sen- 
tence. In  Latin,  which  has  a  passive  voice,  amo  the 
active  means  I  love,  and  amor  is  the  passive,  which 
we  express  by  the  sentence,  I  am  loved. 

It  is  needless  to  follow  this  line  of  examination 
further.  I  did  it  in  detail  twelve  years  ago  and  more, 
and  those  who  care  to  do  so  will  find  two  chapters 
about  it  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses."  It  is  sufficiently 
clear  to  the  reader,  I  hope,  that  the  English  sentence 
is  not  constructed  upon  the  forms  of  words  and  their 
correlation.  Its  construction  is  purely  logical ;  that 
is,  according  to  the  succession  of  thought,  there  being 
in  it,  however,  a  few  vestiges  of  grammar,  the  use- 
fulness of  which  is  fully  proved  by  the  fact  of  their 
retention.^ 

1  Professor  Whitnej''s  Essentials  of  English  Grammar  was  published 
as  these  chapters  were  appearing  in  their  original  form.  It  was  after  their 
publicatiou  that  I  read  this  latest  English  grammar-book.  So  far  as  the 
soundness  of  its  teachings  goes,  it  seems  to  me  in  almost  every  particular 
excellent.  (I  will  say,  by  the  way,  that  I  should  not  presume  to  speak  in 
Buch  a  tone  of  approval  of  anything  that  Professor  Whitney  had  written 
in  the  higher  philology.)  I  do  not  wonder  that  Professor  Child,  of  Har 
vard,  than  whom  there  is  no  more  accomplished  or  sagacious  English 
Bcholar  in  the  country,  says  of  it,  "I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  before  saw 
an  English  grammar  which  I  would  permit  my  children  to  look  into,  so 
great  the  chance  has  been  that  they  would  learn  nothing  or  be  taught 
something  false."  Professor  Whitney's  book  does  teach,  and  it  teaches 
nothing  false,  at  least  of  any  importance;  but  what  a  reproach  is  Professor 
Child's  commendation  upon  that  system  of  grammar  in  favor  of  which 
.here  went  up  such  outcries  when  I  published  The  Grammarless  Tonyue. 
But  Professor  Whitney's  book  is  not  a  grammar ;  and  he  himself  plainly 
loes  not  believe  in  English  grammar,  such  as  we  have  considered  it;  nor 
i«es  he  believe  in  teaching  it  as  it  has  been  taught,  or  that  learning  it  is 


2^4  '  EVERY-r»AY    EXGLISn. 

necessary  to  p;ood  English  speech  or  writing.  As  to  which  read  this  pas* 
Bage  from  his  preface,  in  whicii  I  have  emphasized  some  opinions  :  — 

"That  the  leading  object  of  the  study  of  English  grammar  is  to  teach 
the  correct  use  of  English  is,  in  my  view,  an  error,  and  one  which  is  grad- 
ually becoming  removed,  giving  way  to  the  sounder  opinion  that  grammar 
is  the  reflective  studj'  of  language,  for  a  variety  of  purposes,  of  which 
correctness  in  writing  is  only  one,  and  a  secondary  or  subordinate  one,  — 
by  no  means  unimportant,  but  best  attained  when  sought  indirectly.  It 
should  be  a  pervading  element  in  the  whole  school  and  home  training  of 
the  young  to  make  them  use  their  own  tongue  with  accuracy  and  force, 
«nd,  along  with  any  special  drilling  directed  to  this  end,  some  of  the  rudi- 
mentary distinctions  and  rules  of  grammar  are  conveniently  taught ;  but 
that  is  not  the  study  of  grammar,  and  it  will  not  bear  the  intrusion  of 
much  formal  grammar  loithout  being  spoiled  for  its  otcn  ends.  It  is  con- 
stant use  and  practice,  under  never-failing  watch  and  correction,  that  makes 
good  writers  and  speakers;  the  application  of  direct  authority  is  the  most 
efficient  corrective.  Grammar  has  its  part  to  contribute,  but  rather  in  the 
higher  than  in  the  lower  stages  of  the  work.  One  must  be  a  somewhat  re- 
flective user  of  language  to  amend  even  here  and  there  a  point  by  gram- 
matical reasons;  and  no  one  ever  changed  from  a  bad  speaker  to  a  good 
one  by  applying  the  rules  of  grammar  to  what  he  said." 

This  gives  up  the  whole  question.  The  reflective  study  of  language, 
which  does  not  concern  itself  with  rudimentary  distinctions  or  with  rules, 
and  which  does  not  change  a  bad  speaker  to  a  good  one,  may  be,  and  in- 
deed is,  a  very  valuable  and  interesting  study,  but  it  is  not  what  the  school- 
teacher or  the  school-boy  means  by  learning  grammar.  The  reflective  study 
of  language,  too,  is  an  exercise  of  the  mind,  than  which  there  is  none 
which  more  requires  natural  abilitv  and  the  high  training  which  comes  of 
discipline.  It  is  a  study  far  bej'ond  the  capacity  of  the  pupils  at  our  pub- 
lic schools  and  academies,  into  whose  hands  even  Professor  Whitney's 
Essentials  might  better  not  be  put. 

As  to  gender  and  verb  forms  he  has  on  the  next  page  the  following  re- 
marks, which  present  briefly  but  substantially  the  same  views  of  the  sub- 
ject which  I  have  already  given:  — 

"The  ordinarv  method  with  gender  in  nouns,  for  example,  which  was 
really  an  imposition  upon  English  of  a  system  of  distinctions  belonging 
elsewhere,  has  been  abandoned  in  favor  of  one  that  is  both  truer  and  far 
simpler.  The  sharp  distinction,  again,  of  the  verb-phrases  or  compound 
forms  from  the  real  verb-forms  seems  to  me  a  matter  of  no  small  impor- 
Isnce  il  the  study  of  the  construction  of  sentences  is  to  be  made  a  reality.' 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

PAETS  OF  SPEECH. — DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN"  LBAEN. 
ING  GERMAN  AND  LEARNING  ENGLISH. 

One  trait  of  the  English  language  is  the  great 
flexibility,  not  to  say  looseness,  of  its  structure  in  re- 
gard to  what  are  called  the  parts  of  speech.  In  this 
respect  it  is,  as  in  others,  nearly  unique  among  the 
languages  of  the  civilized  world.  English  may  almost 
be  said  to  have  no  distinctive  parts  of  speech.  This 
is  a  strong  putting  of  the  case,  I  admit ;  but  it  ex- 
presses the  truth  more  nearly  than  it  could  be  ex- 
pressed without  a  long  and  carefully-elaborated  state- 
ment. The  principal  parts  of  speech  are  the  noun, 
the  verb,  the  adjective,  and  that  peculiar  sort  of  word 
which  by  grammarians  has  been  strangely  called  the 
pronoun,  about  which  I  shall  say  something  hereafter. 
With  these  words  sentences  can  be  formed;  and  with- 
out any  others  we  could  speak  and  write,  and  attain 
all,  or  nearly  all,  the  great  ends  of  language.  True, 
our  speech  would  be  clumsy,  the  forms  of  our  thought 
blockish,  compared  with  what  they  are  now ;  but  we 
could  speak  of  the  necessary  things  of  daily  life,  and 
communicate  intelligibly  upon  almost  any  subject. 

Now,  the  fact  is  that  these  principal  parts  of  speech 
.tre  so  interchangeable  in  our  mother  tongue  that 
they  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  distinguished  from  each 
other.  In  English,  almost  any  simple  noun  may  be 
used  as  a  vei-b  without  change  in  its  form  ;  and  in 
like  manner  almost  any  verb  may  be  used  as  a  noun. 


296  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Kouns  are  used  as  adjectives,  and  adjectives  as  nouns, 
Pronouns  may  be  used,  and  ai'e  used,  as  nouns,  as  ad- 
jectives, and  even  as  verbs.  We  wire  a  message,  we 
table  a  resolution,  we  foot  our  way  home,  a  hunter 
trees  a  bear,  a  broker  bears  stock  or  bulls  it,  the  mer- 
chant ships  his  goods,  the  hypocrite  cloaks  his  sins 
with  acted  falsehood,  the  invalid  suns  himself,  the 
east  wind  clouds  the  sky.  We  thus  constantly  use, 
and  for  centuries  have  used,  as  verbs  words  which 
originally  were  nouns.  On  the  other  hand,  we  speak 
of  the  run  of  a  ship,  of  a  great  haul  of  fish,  of  a  horse 
coming  in  on  the  jump,  of  a  man  being  on  the  go,  of 
a  great  rush  of  people,  of  the  push  of  business,  of 
the  thrust  of  the  rafters  of  a  house,  of  the  spring 
and  fall,  and  so  on,  using  verbs  as  nouns.  We  can- 
not speak  of  the  right  and  the  wrong,  the  good  and 
the  bad,  the  strong  and  the  weak,  without  using  ad- 
jectives as  nouns ;  for  the  pretense  of  the  elder  gram- 
marians that  a  qualified  noun  is  understood  in  these 
cases  is  unfounded,  and  was  made  only  for  the  sake 
of  keeping  up  the  make-believe  of  grammar.  And 
as  to  using  nouns  as  adjectives,  we  cannot  speak  of 
a  gold  watch,  an  iron  bar,  a  bar-room,  a  carpet-bag, 
a  carpet  knight,  a  brick  house,  a  stone  bridge,  or  a 
windmill,  without  doing  that.  It  is  the  commonest 
conversion  of  parts  of  speech.  We  could  hardly 
communicate  in  English  without  it.  And  it  is  not 
because  in  the  phrases  "  lady  friend "  and  "  gen- 
tleman friend  "  a  noun  is  used  as  an  adjective  that 
they  are  so  offensive,  —  at  least  to  some  people. 
When  we  say  a  brew-house,  a  wash-house,  or  a  turn- 
stile, we  use  verbs  as  adjectives.  As  to  pronouns, 
'he"  and  "she"  are  constantly  used  as  adjectives, 
«8,  a  he  goat,  a  she  animal.      Pepys  writes  of   hit 


PARTS   OF   SPEECH.  297 

"she  cousin."  Of  the  use  of  "she"  as  a  noun  in  the 
sense  of  woman,  English  poetry  of  all  times  is  full. 
"  The  fair,  tlie  chaste,  the  unexpressive  she,"  in  "As 
You  Like  It,"  is  one  of  a  thousand  like  instances. 
Shakespeare  also  uses  "thou"  as  a  verb:  "If  thou 
thou'st  him,"  that  is,  if  thou  say'st  "  thou"  to  him  ; 
and  we  nowadays  say  that  Friends  "  thee  and  thou  " 
us.  Indeed,  this  convertibility  of  the  parts  of  speech 
is  so  characteristic  of  the  English  language  that  I 
found  this  sentence  in  a  London  magazine :  "  Here 
are  the  whereons  to  make  your  fortune,"  —  an  adverb 
being  used  as  a  noun.  The  example  is  not  one  which 
I  should  liold  up  for  imitation;  but  it  is  in  the  normal 
line  of  English  speech  development,  which  tends  to 
the  obliteration  of  the  formal  distinction  of  parts  of 
speech.  Under  what  circumstances  this  distinction 
shall  be  disregarded  is  a  question  of  taste,  to  be  de- 
cided by  the  speaker  or  writer  at  his  own  peril.  In 
the  following  passage  from  a  speech  by  a  Cavalier 
commander  in  the  Great  Rebellion  is  an  instance  quite 
as  striking  as  that  just  cited  above,  but  far  more  suc- 
cessful :  "But  when  you  have  come  to  the  puritan- 
ical towns  Taunton,  Crewkerne,  Bristol,  Dorchester, 
and  Exeter,  then  let  your  swords  cruel  it  without  dif- 
ference of  sex,  age,  or  condition."  (Lord  Paulet's 
speech  at  Sherborne,  September  7,  1642,  apud  Wal- 
lington,  ii.  92.)  Here  we  have  an  adjective  used  as 
a  verb  most  happily.^ 

It  has  been  objected  to  this  theory  of  the  English 
language  that  it  refutes  itself,  and  that  every  lan- 
guage must  have  parts  of  speech,  without  which  in- 

1  It  is  proper  to  say  that  the  correctness  of  the  report  of  this  speech  wa« 
ienied  by  Lord  Paulet  and  hn  friends;  but  ^at  is  not  to  our  present  rur- 
wse. 


298  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

fcelligible  sentences  could  not  be  constructed;  without 
which,  indeed,  there  could  not  be  language.  True 
enough  this,  in  a  certain  sense.  If  it  is  meant  that 
the  words  in  an  English  sentence  express  object,  sub- 
ject, act,  quality,  etc.,  including  all  the  modes  of 
making,  modifying,  extending,  or  limiting  an  asser- 
tion, who  could  dissent  ?  Certainly  not  I.  But  if  it 
is  meant  that  there  are  certain  words  the  meaning  of 
which  is  limited  to  some  one  of  these  functions,  and 
that  such  words  are  definitely  certain  parts  of  speech, 
BO  that  it  may  be  told  whether  they  are  verbs,  nouns, 
or  adjectives,  without  knowing  the  connection  in 
which  they  are  used,  as  it  may  in  other  languages, 
then  I  dissent  and  deny.  Nor  can  I  believe  that  any 
intelligent  and  competently  instructed  critic  would 
attempt  to  maintain  such  a  theory  of  English  parts 
of  speech  after  giving  the  subject  due  consideration. 
For  example  :  Love  in  English  corresponds  to  both 
amor  and  amo  in  Latin,  and  to  amour  and  aime  in 
French.  Man  is  a  noun,  meaning  a  human  male 
(Jiomo^  Tiomme)  ;  and  it  is  a  verb,  as,  to  man  a  ship, 
for  which  in  Latin  and  French  there  must  be  peri- 
phrasis ;  and  it  is  an  adjective,  as  man  child,  man 
rope,  a  use  of  the  word  impossible  in  Latin  or  in 
French.  Amor  and  amo,  amour  and  aime^  are  re- 
Bpectively  noun  and  verb  in  Latin  and  French  ;  but 
what  is  love?  Homo  and  homme  are,  respectively,  a 
part  of  speech,  a  noun  ;  but  what  is  man?  You  can- 
not tell  whether  love  or  man  is  noun,  verb,  or  adjec- 
tive until  you  see  it  in  a  sentence.  The  illustrations 
of  this  fact  in  English  are  countless. 

This  comparative  freedom  not  only  from  rules,  bu^ 
from  limitations,  —  from  the  bonds  even  of  terminol- 
ogy, —  makes  English  a  language  radically  differen 


PARTS   OF   SPEECH.  299 

from  all  otheis.  It  may  be  learned,  must  be  learned, 
as  no  other  language  can  be  learned  by  one  not  born 
and  bred  to  speak  it.  I  am  reminded  of  this  by  the 
letter  of  a  business  man  who  asks  me  how  he  shall 
set  about  to  learn  the  German  language.  A  strange 
request  this  to  make  of  me  ;  for  I  have  undertaken 
onl)^  to  tell  my  readers,  so  far  as  I  can  do  so,  some- 
thing about  the  English  language ;  and,  in  general,  I 
profess  acquaintance  only  with  my  mother  tongue,  — 
at  least,  with  any  approach  to  thoroughness.  I  would 
gladly  help  this  business  man,  if  I  were  able  to  do 
BO ;  but  I  am  not.  Let  us  see  how  the  case  stands. 
According  to  his  own  representation  of  it,  he  is  thirty 
years  old  ;  he  has  little  time  for  study,  and  he  wishes 
to  learn  German,  the  most  complex  of  the  languages 
known  to  modern  literature,  without  learning  the 
laws  of  its  complex  construction.  He  thinks,  also, 
that  I  would  not  advise  him  to  commit  the  main  rules 
of  German  grammar  to  memory ;  and  for  a  very 
strange  reason,  —  because  he  is  unused  and  inapt  to 
that  work.  On  the  contrary,  this  is  the  very  rea- 
son wh}^  he,  hoping  to  learn  German  at  all,  should 
make  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  laws  of 
its  etymology  and  its  syntax,  should  learn  them  by 
heart,  and  have  them  ready  for  application  at  any 
moment. 

If  this  correspondent  will  only  give  himself  the 
trouble  to  be  born  once  more,  and  become  as  a  little 
child,  and  if  he  will  so  order  the  preliminaries  that 
the  interesting  event  shall  happen  in  Germany,  and 
if  he  will  thereafter  live  in  Germany  for  a  dozen  or 
a  score  of  years,  he  may  then  learn  German  so  as  to 
ipeak  it  fluently  and  read  it  easily,  without  learning 
ts  grammar.     The  German  that  he  will  then  speak 


300  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

will  be.  good  or  bad,  exactly  according  to  the  educa- 
tion and  the  social  culture  of  the  people  with  whom 
he  consorts,  and  the  kind  of  authors  whose  books  he  is 
in  the  habit  of  reading.  But  even  if  he  should  accom- 
plish what  I  have  suggested  to  him,  he  could  hardly, 
I  venture  to  say,  write  German  with  precision  and 
clearness  unless  he  should  study  the  grammar  of  the 
language.  From  my  very  moderate  acquaintance 
with  its  structure,  I  should  say  that  of  all  the  lan- 
guages that  are  learned  for  business  or  literary  pur- 
poses —  English,  German,  French,  Italian,  and  Span- 
ish —  German  is  the  one  in  which  an  acquaintance 
with  the  rules  of  its  grammar  is  most  necessary  to  a 
writer  of  it,  even  when  it  is  his  mother  tongue.  It  is 
indeed  a  most  discouraging  language  to  a  foreigner ; 
and  its  grammar  is  only  less  complex  than  the  Greek. 
About  as  well  might  a  man  undertake  to  learn  Greek 
as  German  without  learning  its  rules.  True,  it  may 
be,  and  it  is,  picked  up  by  valets-de-place  in  a  valet- 
de-place  way.  Then  there  is  the  Ollendorf  method. 
But  I  frankly  confess  that  I  have  not  much  respect 
for  that.  It  seems  to  me  but  a  poor  substitute  for 
the  being  born  over  again  in  the  right  place.  The 
effect  of  this  regeneration  is  not  accomplished  by  ask- 
ing in  a  foreign  tongue,  "  Have  you  seen  the  green 
goggles  of  my  uncle  ?  "  "  Have  you  worn  the  petti 
coat  of  my  aunt  ?  "  and  replying,  "  I  have  seen  the 
green  goggles  of  your  uncle ; "  "I  have  not  worn  the 
petticoat  of  your  aunt."  I  know  no  way  of  learn- 
ing a  foreign  language  that  has  a  real  grammar,  that 
is,  the  structure  of  whose  sentences  depends  in  a 
great  measure  upon  the  forms  of  words  and  the  corre- 
lation of  those  forms,  than  by  studying  the  laws  of 
tHat  grammar;    and  if  this  correspondent  means  ta 


PARTS   OF   SPEECH.  801 

learn  German  he  must  prepare  himself  for  a  long, 
tough  wrestle. 

It  is  asked  in  various  quarters,  and  even  by  those 
who  begin  to  see  the  real  nature  of  the  English  lan- 
guage, if  I  would  have  no  rules  at  all  of  English 
grammar  taught.  I  answer,  None  whatever  to  chil- 
dren under  twelve  years  of  age,  or  thereabout ;  none 
until  the  scholar  has  already  learned  good  English  by 
hearing  it  and  by  speaking  it.  In  this  I  have  the 
support  of  so  eminent  a  philologist  as  Professor  Whit- 
ney, who  says  that  it  is  "  constant  use  and  practice, 
under  never-failing  watch  and  correction,  that  makes 
good  writers  and  speakers  ;  "  and  that  good  English 
is  to  be  taught  not  through  the  study  of  grammar,  but 
"  the  application  of  direct  authority."  The  example 
by  and  the  authority  of  parents,  kinsfolk,  friends,  and 
teachers,  who  themselves  speak  correctly,  will  lead  a 
child  surely  into  a  right  use  of  his  mother  tongue. 
After  he  has  thus  learned  that  use,  then  let  him  enter 
upon  the  "  reflective  study  "  of  its  history  and  struct- 
ure, if  he  has  the  time,  the  inclination,  and  the  ability 
for  such  a  mental  exercise.  This  study,  however, 
will  not  help  him  to  speak  correctly  or  to  write  well. 
It  is  merely  a  knowledge,  simple  of  itself,  barren  of 
daily  usefulness.  In  Professor  Whitney's  words,  "  No 
one  ever  changed  from  a  bad  speaker  to  a  good  one 
by  applying  the  rules  of  grammar  to  what  he  said." 
It  is  true,  as  one  critic  puts  the  matter,  as  to  gram- 
mar, that  "  without  a  knowledge  of  its  laws,  acquired 
either  from  actual  tuition  in  it,  or  from  constant  in- 
tercourse with  people  who  speak  grammatically,  or 
from  the  reading  of  good  writers,  no  man  can  write 
correctly  and  eloquently."  But  the  force  of  implica- 
tion in  '^lese  ors  is  tremendous.     In  my  opinion  the 


W2  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

intercourse  and  the  reading  are  worth  the  tuition  a 
thousand  times  over.  And  the  peculiarity  of  the 
English  language  in  this  respect  is  that  to  obtain  the 
most  complete  mastery  of  it  only  intercourse  with  good 
speakers  and  reading  good  books  are  necessary.  Tu- 
ition may  be  wholly  dispensed  with. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

» 

tNlER VIEWING.  —  A    PARENTHETICAL    CHAPTEE. — 
NOUNS  USED  AS  "  ACTIVE  TRANSITIVE  "  VERBS. 

I  AM  asked,  called  upon,  entreated,  exhorted,  almost 
implored  to  denounce,  proscribe,  ban,  and  excommu- 
nicate, with  bell,  book,  and  candle,  the  verb  to  inter- 
view. With  all  my  heart,  I  would  do  so  if  I  could.  If 
by  a  stroke  of  my  pen  I  could  extinguish  the  verb, 
with  its  two  participles  interviewing  and  interviewed^ 
and  its  noun  interviewer^  —  nay,  could  I  by  a  word 
put  out  of  existence  the  interviewer  himself,  the 
thing  as  well  as  the  name,  —  I  know  that  manslaugh- 
ter as  well  as  word  slaughter  would  sit  lightly  on  my 
soul  to-morrow.  But  with  curses  in  my  heart,  I  am 
bound,  if  not  to  bless  this  word,  at  least  to  refrain 
myself  from  evil  speaking  of  it.  The  son  of  Beor 
was  not  more  sorely  racked  between  his  wishes  and 
his  duty  than  I  am  between  mine ;  and  like  him  I 
must  say  to  those  who  summon  me  to  curse  the  com- 
mon enemy  that  if  they  were  to  give  me,  what  I  need 
far  more  than  Balaam  did,  a  house  full  of  silver  and 
gold,  I  could  not  declare  against  the  correctness,  the 
perfect  regularity,  and  no  less  the  clear  expressive- 
ness of  this  word  detestable. 

My  tongue  is  tied  and  my  hand  is  stayed  not  be- 
cause I  remember,  or  think  I  remember,  having  met 
with  the  word  in  a  play  by  some  one  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan dramatists ;  for  a  bad,  abnormally  formed 
word  is  not  made  a  good  one  by  any  usage,  however 


304  EVEEY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

eminent;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  bad 
merely  because  it  is  a  new  word,  a  neologism,  or  a 
"neoterism,"  as  a  "  neoterist  "  — shall  I  say  ?  — has 
chosen  to  call  such  things.  But  I  must  withhold 
myself  from  expressing  the  feeling  which  the  word 
excites,  I  believe,  in  the  minds  of  all  decent  people, 
by  pronouncing  against  it  upon  its  own  merits.  Foi 
it  is  a  perfectly  proper  word.  If  we  have  view  as  a 
verb,  there  is  nothing  to  be  said  against  intervieiv. 
We  might  as  well  undertake  to  set  aside  intermeddle 
from  meddle  as  interview  from  view.  And  on  the 
other  hand,  we  have  long  had  interview^  the  noun  ; 
and  having  that,  the  use  of  it  as  a  verb  is  a  use  of 
language  than  which  there  is  nothing  more  truly 
English.  This  of  course  carries  with  it  the  partici- 
ples in  ing  and  in  ec?,  and  the  name  of  the  agent  in 
er.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  there  is  nothing  to  be 
said  against  the  perfect  legitimacy  of  to  interview^ 
interviewing,  interviewed,  and  interviewer. 

But  although  I  am  thus  constrained  to  admit  the 
perfect  propriety  of  this  new  name,  I  would,  as  poets 
invoke  the  Muses,  call  upon  the  Furies  to  aid  me 
while  I  prophesy  against  this  new  thing.  It  is  the 
most  perfect  contrivance  yet  devised  to  make  journal- 
ism an  offense,  a  thing  of  ill  savor  in  all  healthy  nos- 
trils. It  elevates  paying  into  an  art,  leaving  it  no 
longer  a  mystery,  and  makes  boring  a  paid  profession. 
It  is  a  conspiracy  against  the  privacy  of  the  individ- 
ual, which  is  more  deserving  of  reprehension,  because 
it  is  less  open  to  remedy,  than  an  attempt  against  the 
liberty  of  the  citizen.  To  get  gain  by  the  gratification 
of  a  feeling,  curiosity,  so  petty  that  its  expression 
degrades  even  the  noblest  countenance,  it  attempts  to 
dignify  intrusion  with  the  mantle  of  the  teacher  whc 


INTERVIEWING.  305 

ministers  to  the  noble  desire  of  knowledge.  It  pan- 
ders to  the  vanity  of  petty  men  who  covet  notoriety  ; 
it  extorts  a  sacrifice  of  time  and  inclination  from  men 
who  would  avoid  needless  publicity,  by  making  them 
shrink  from  seeming  personal  discourtesy  to  the  in- 
terviewer ;  and  it  places  the  person  who  either  con- 
sents or  refuses  to  be  interviewed  at  the  mercy  of  his 
tormentor,  who  in  either  case  can  misrepresent  him, 
and  who  often  does  so,  to  suit  his  own  purposes,  or 
those  of  his  employers.  It  is  in  every  respect  a  thor- 
oughly contemptible  business,  which  honorable  jour- 
nalists should  shun  as  they  would  shun  contamina- 
tion. 

My  personal  experience  of  interviewing  is  small ; 
but  it  has  not  been  such  as  to  modify  favorably  my 
judgment  of  it  in  the  abstract.  I  was  ill,  confined  to 
my  house,  and  seeking  and  needing  the  perfect  men- 
tal quiet  which  was  prescribed  as  one  of  the  condi- 
tions of  my  recovery.  A  gentleman  called,  and  was 
informed  that  I  saw  no  one.  He  called  twice  again, 
and  at  his  third  call  left  word   that  he  was  from  the 

,  and  that  it  was  important  that  he  should  see 

me.  Thinking  that  some  person  or  some  cause  in 
which  I  was  interested  was  in  need  of  a  service  that 
I  could  render,  at  his  next  call  I  saw  him.  On  en- 
tering the  room  I  told  him  that  I  was  ill,  but  that  I 
was  ready  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say ;  when  to  my 
surprise  he  began  an  inquiring  conversation  upon  a 
subject  which  in  my  judgment  was  not  worth  five 
minutes  of  the  time  of  any  reasonable  creature.  I 
told  him  so.  He  was  perfectly  civil  in  manner,  but 
equally  pertinacious.     He  "  supposed  that  I  had  read 

the  article  in  the upon  the  subject."    I  told  him 

that  I  had  not.     He  asked  if  I  had  read  another  arti- 
20 


506  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

ele  upon  the  same  subject  in  another  newspaper.  I 
told  him  that  I  had  not ;  and  although  he  contrived 
to  continue  the  conversation  for  a  little  while,  I  man- 
aged to  make  the  interview  as  short  as  I  could  make 
it  without  being  rude  to  a  man  in  my  own  house. 
For  this  is  the  means  of  extortion  that  pertains  to 
interviewing.  The  victim  must  do  some  talking,  at 
the  risk  of  seeming  churlish  and  personally  offensive. 
Now  the  man  who  talks  with  an  interviewer  is  lost. 

I  thought  that  I  had  rid  myself  of  the  matter,  and 
that  I  should  hear  no  more  of  it.  Vain  delusion  ! 
What  was  my  surprise  to  see  published  the  very  next 
morning  a  report  of  this  interview,  beginning  with 
the  assertion  that  I  had  entered  with  alacrity  upon 
the  discussion  of  the  subject,  and  that  I  had  said  that 
I  had  read  the  two  articles  upon  it  that  I  had  not 
read,  my  opinion  as  to  its  triviality  and  futility  being, 
of  course,  entirely  omitted,  and  the  opinions  which 
had  dropped  from  me  in  the  course  of  the  brief  replies 
that  I  could  not  help  making  being  set  forth  in  a  style 
«vhich  represented  them  about  as  exactly  as  this  arti- 
cle would  represent  my  opinions  upon  the  present  sub- 
ject if,  after  being  put  in  type,  some  printer's  boy 
should  knock  it  into  pi.  And  then  the  jeers  for  days 
from  certain  friends  that  a  man  of  my  experience 
with  the  press  should  allow  himself  to  be  entrapped 
into  an  interview  !  How,  in  the  pride  and  insolence 
of  their  uninterviewed  souls,  they  girded  at  me  ! 

But  this  was  not  the  end.  Twenty-four  hours  had 
hardly  passed  when  word  was  brought  me,  just  as  I 
had  sat  down  to  dinner,  that  a  gentleman  wished  to 
Bee  me  upon  business  of  importance,  and  would  wait 
my  leisure.  To  relieve  him,  I  saw  him  immediately 
He  was  of  suave  and  gentle  manners  ;  and  he  blandly 


INTERVIEWING.  307 

proposed  to  me  that,  as  he  saw  the  report  just  men- 
tioned could  not  have  done  me  justice,  I  should  write 
out  an  article  expressing  fully  my  opinions,  which  he 
would  considerately  publish  in  the  form  made  and 
provided  for  such  occasions.  That  interview  proved 
to  be  a  veiy  short  one  indeed ;  and  I  returned  to  my 
dinner  with  a  venomousness  of  appetite  altogether 
unbestowable  by  the  bitterest  tonics  of  my  physician. 
But  somehow  or  other  it  must  have  got  about  that  I 
was  an  interviewable  man  (interview ahle^  although 
never  used  before,  I  believe,  is  an  excellent  word, 
and  uninterviewable,  which  is  five  seconds  younger, 
much  better,  —  indeed,  quite  admirable);  for  a  few 
days  afterward    one  of    the  fraternity,  after  calling 

twice  in  vain,  sent  in  his  card,    "  Mr. ,  of  the 

,"  to  me  at  dinner.     He  wished  to  see  me  upon 

another  subject  (having  been  sent,  I  grieve  to  relate, 
by  a  treacherous  friend),  and  to  know  if  I  would  not 
be  seen  then,  when  I  could  be  seen.  The  answer  was, 
Not  at  all.  Whereupon,  as  my  servant  informed  me, 
he  demanded  his  card  in  a  huff,  and  went  off  in  high 
dudgeon. 

I  recount  this  experience,  brief  and  mild  although 
it  must  be  in  comparison  with  that  which  others  have 
gone  through,  not  for  my  own  sake,  but  because  I 
hope  that  it  may  be  of  some  service  to  those  who 
have  undergone  less  discipline  than  mine.  And  yet 
I  will  say  for  myself  that  hereafter,  if  an  interview 
with  me  is  reported,  it  may  be  safely  assumed,  first, 
ihat  I  have  not  been  interviewed  at  all ;  next  and 
last,  that  the  opinions,  or  at  least  the  language,  at- 
tributed to  me  are  not  mine  ;  in  which  respect  I  shall 
only  have  suffered  what  others,  as  we  know,  have 
suffered  before.     What  journalism  now  chiefly  needs 


308  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

to  sweeten  it  and  give  it  dignity  is  a  decent  respect 
for  the  personal  privacy  of  all  men. 

The  foregoing  consideration  of  interviewing  (both 
the  word  and  the  thing)  was,  on  its  first  publica- 
tion, made  the  subject  of  not  a  little  remark,  critical 
and  jocose,  in  various  quarters,  more  or  less  nota- 
ble. That  which  was  merely  in  the  way  of  common 
grammar  talk  may  be  profitably  passed  by  with  little 
attention.  It  consisted  chiefly  of  expressions  of  an- 
guish that  I  could  countenance  the  making  "  an  act- 
ive transitive  verb  of  the  noun  mterview."  Now  as 
to  what  is  an  active  transitive  verb  I  am  not  quite 
sure  that  I  or  any  one  else  can  clearly  tell ;  but  I  do 
know  that  whether  all  the  nouns  in  the  language  are 
made  into  articles  of  that  kind  I  do  not  care  a  copu- 
lative conjunction.  In  one  quarter,  however,  an  in- 
telligent critic  went  into  particulars,  and  jocosely, 
but  plainly  with  serious  intent,  cited  a  published  ac- 
count of  a  sleigh-ride  of  some  gay  young  people,  who, 
before  returning  home,  visited  the  village  restaurant, 
where  they  were,  in  the  language  of  the  reporter, 
"  oystered  "  by  Mr.  Jones.  The  question  was  then 
asked,  "  Why  is  not  the  verb  '  to  oyster  '  as  good  as 
the  verb  '  to  interview,'  and  as  legitimate  ?  And  why 
are  not  '  oystering  '  and  '  oystered  '  the  equals  in  pro- 
priety with  '  interviewing '  and  *  interviewed  '  ?  And 
why  are  not  '  to  suicide,'  '  suiciding,'  and  '  suicided  ' 
—  the  latter  word  being  frequently  used  by  the  As- 
sociated Press  to  save  tolls  —  as  legitimate  as  either 
of  the  others  ?  " 

There  is  no  reason  why  they  are  not  in  form  just 
as  correct.  The  legitimacy  of  either  cannot  be  dis- 
Duted  on  any  ground  that  I  can  now  perceive.  Oyster 
to  be  sure,  is  a  noun  ;  but  so  are  butter,  bread,  and 


INTERVIEWING.  309 

wine,  names  of  the  usual  accompaniments  of  oysters. 
And  yet  for  generations  we  have  known  the  man 
whose  bread  is  buttered  on  both  sides,  we  have  eaten 
breaded  cutlets,  we  have  dined  men  and  wined  them. 
And  in  "  Punch  "  we  have  one  of  Mr.  Du  Manner's 
prim  little  damsels  complaining  that  her  brother 
George  has  not  only  buttered  his  bread,  but  has 
•'  actually  been  and  Liehig* s-extract-of-beefed  it  as 
well."  We  may  have  bowels  of  compassion  for  poor 
George,  who  ate  that  half-stewed  fleshly  abomination ; 
but  as  to  the  phraseology  of  his  sister,  although  she 
does  make  a  rather  startling  compound  verb,  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  in  my  judgment,  as  to  the  correct- 
ness of  the  use  as  a  verb  of  the  compound  noun  X^e- 
big' s-extract-of-beef,  which  is  perfectly  analogous  with 
her  verb  use  of  butter.  It  is  not  the  verb  use  of  the 
noun  that  strikes  us  as  strange  and  laughable,  but 
the  compound  ;  the  use  of  which  as  a  verb  it  is  that 
impresses  upon  us  the  fact  that  the  four  words  really 
make  but  one  noun. 

Moreover,  there  is  the  case  of  the  Bowery  boy, 
who,  approaching  with  bis  sweetheart  another  in  like 
manner  accompanied,  in  the  lobby  of  the  theatre, 
said,  "  I  say,  Bill,  have  yer  salooned  yer  g'hal  ?  " 
'  Naouw,"  was  the  reply.  "  Then  lend  us  two  shil'n, 
and  I  '11  treat."  Here  grant  the  noun  saloon,  and  the 
"  active  transitive  "  verb  to  saloon  (the  gi-ammarians 
will  tell  me  if  I  am  wrong)  cannot  be  disputed. 
The  question  as  to  its  use  is  one  of  taste,  not  of  ana- 
iogical  correctness.  And  just  so  it  is  with  oystered 
Bnd  intervieived.  Those  who  like  them  may  use 
them  without  the  slightest  fear  that  they  are  vio- 
lating any  rule  or  analogy  of  the  English  language. 
Our  language  has  recently  been   enriched  with  tha 


310  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

Verb  to  finance.  I  find  in  a  late  number  of  the  Lon- 
don "  Telegraph,"  "  They  have  also  largely  financed 
the  paper  of  projected  or  unfinished  railways  ;  "  and 
if  negotiate  will  not  do,  finance  may  be  used  with 
equal  correctness.  As  to  financiered,  for  some  possi- 
bly discoverable  reason,  it  seems  to  be  falling  into  dis- 
grace. 

To  suicide  as  a  verb,  the  objection  is  of  altogether 
another  sort.  Its  inadmissibility  depends  not  upon 
its  noun  form,  but  upon  its  meaning.  Suicide  is 
merely  an  English  form  of  two  compounded  Latin 
words  meaning  self-murder.  To  say  that  a  man  sui- 
cided himself  is  therefore  to  commit  the  absurd  pleo- 
nasm of  saying  that  he  self-murdered  himself  ;  and 
to  say  simply  that  he  suicided  is  to  say  that  he  self- 
murdered,  which  is  as  thoroughly  and  absurdly  un- 
English  as  to  say  of  a  man  that  he  self -loved,  or 
self-praised,  or  self-washed,  instead  of  that  he  loved 
himself,  praised  himself,  washed  himself.  The  same 
objection,  and  no  greater,  would  apply  to  homicided, 
fratrieided,  parricided.  In  all  the  nouns  on  which 
these  supposed  verbs  are  based,  the  object  of  the  ac- 
tion and  the  action  itself  are  both  expressed  ;  and  it 
IS  not  English,  never  has  been,  and  we  may,  perhaps, 
safely  say  never  will  be  English,  to  use  an  "  active 
transitive  "  verb  without  an  object  of  its  action.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  no  more  thoroughly  English 
use  of  language,  according  to  its  best  usage  since  it 
was  first  spoken,  than  the  making  a  noun  do  duty  as 
a  verb  ;  always  provided  that  its  meaning  admits  of 
Bnch  conversion.  As  to  whether  we  shall  say  that 
we  oystered  our  friends,  or  liquored  them,  or  that  we 
Balooned  our  glials,  that  is  purely  a  matter  of  per 
Bonal  taste ;  in  regard  to  which  too  great  fastidious 
aess  might  perhaps  savor  of  bloated  aristocracy. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

VOICE,   TENSE,   CASE,   GENDER,   ETC. 

About  the  passive  voice  and  auxiliary  verbs,  so 
called,  enough  would  seem  to  have  been  said  iu 
"  Words  and  their  Uses  ;  "  but  in  reply  to  suggestions 
and  queries  upon  the  subject  it  may  be  well  to  say  a 
little  more,  although  at  the  risk  of  some  repetition. 

It  is  not  strange  that  those  who  have  been  brought 
up  to  think  that  "  I  am  loved  "  is  the  passive  voice  of 
"I  love,"  and  who  have  been  misled  by  the  phrase 
"  auxiliary  verbs,"  should  shy  away  from  the  blunt 
assertion  that  English  has  no  passive  voice,  and  that 
the  verbs  so  called  are  not  properly  auxiliary  ;  that 
is,  that  they  have  their  own  proper  meaning  and  force 
whenever  or  wherever  they  are  used,  and  are  not 
mere  aids  in  the  formation  of  a  real  tense.  According 
to  all  English  grammarians,  the  auxiliary  verbs,  so 
called,  are  have^  is,  shall,  and  will ;  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  ma^  and  can  are  equally  so,  and  by  some 
grammarians  they  are  so  regarded.  If  "I  shall  go  " 
is  a  tense,  iu  which  shall  is  auxiliary,  it  should  seem 
that  "  I  may  go  "  is  equally  a  tense,  in  which  waj/  is 
merely  auxiliary.  As  to  meaning,  if  in  "  I  have  ap- 
ples "  have  means  possess,  how  is  have  voided  of  that 
meaning  in  "  I  have  lived  "  ? 

The  opposite  and  generally  received  theory  has 
been  ably  and  ingeniously  defended  by  Professor 
«¥hitney,  who  says  that  "  where  there  is  even  no 
object  for  have  to  gjvern,  where  condition  and  not 


312  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

action  is  expressed,  and  '  you  are  been,'  '  he  is  come, 
'  tliey  are  gone,'  would  be  theoretically  more  correct 
(as  they  are  alone  proper  in  German),  then  we  have 
converted  have  from  an  independent  part  of  speech 
into  a  fairly  formative  element."  This  is  quoted  by 
Dr.  iMorris  in  his  "  Historical  Outline  of  English  Ac- 
cidenco  "  as  an  explanation  of  the  formation  of  tenses 
by  composition.  It  is  with  unaffected  diffidence  that 
I  express  a  doubt  as  to  the  soundness  of  a  theory 
which  has  the  support  of  two  such  eminent  philol 
ogists  as  Dr.  Morris  and  Professor  Whitney  ;  but  I 
shall  venture  to  examine  this  one. 

First,  as  to  the  proviso,  "  where  condition  and  not 
action  is  expressed."  Does  have  ever  express  any- 
thing but  condition,  the  state  of  possessing  ?  Does  is 
ever  express  anything  but  the  condition  of  existence? 
Is  either  of  these  verbs  expressive  of  action  ?  And  as 
to  "  he  is  come  "  and  "  they  are  gone,"  which  Pro- 
fessor Whitney  cites  as  theoretically  more  correct  than 
other  forms  of  expression  which  he  implies  are  more 
practically  correct  according  to  English  usage,  are  we 
to  understand  that  he  and  Dr.  Morris  deny  that  al- 
though "he  has  come"  and  "  they /iave  gone"  are 
often  heard,  "  he  is  come  "  and  "  they  are  gone  "  are 
the  better  and  indeed  the  correct  forms,  and  have  the 
support  of  higher  and  longer  usage  ?  This  I  can 
hardly  believe.  As  to  the  theory  that  have  loses  its 
meaning  of  possession  and  becomes  a  "  formative  ele- 
ment "  of  tense-by-composition,  it  is  to  be  remai'ked 
that  the  idea  of  possession  is  not  always  or  necessarily 
that  of  gross  physical  possession.  When  we  say,  "  I 
have  a  hope,"  we  do  not  mean  that  we  have  a  hope 
in  our  hands,  or  in  our  pockets,  or  in  a  basket,  as  if  it 
were  an  apple ;  we  mean  that  we  possess  it  in  oui 


VOICE,    TEXSE,    CASE,    GENDEIl,    ETC.  313 

hearts,  or  we  mean,  as  we  often  say,  that  our  hearts 
are  possessed  hy  it;  we  are  in  a  hopeful  condition. 
The  notion  of  possession  is  more  subtle,  more  intel- 
lectual, than  it  is  when  we  say,  "  I  have  an  apple  ;  " 
but  still  there  remains  the  notion  of  possession.  So, 
when  we  say,  "  I  have  to  go,"  we  express  obligation 
by  declaring  that  we  possess,  or  are  possessed  by,  the 
idea  of  going.  The  notion  of  possession  is  here  even 
yet  more  subtle,  more  intellectual,  than  in  the  phrase, 
"  I  have  a  hope  ;  "  it  becomes  even  moral  ;  but  it  is 
still  the  notion  of  possession. 

Nor  does  there  seem  to  me  in  this  even  any  theo- 
retical difficulty ;  for  to  go  is  a  noun,  a  verbal  noun, 
and  any  noun  may  be  the  object  of  the  verb  have. 
The  French  made,  ages  ago,  their  future  tense  by  the 
union  of  this  idea  of  possession  with  a  verbal  noun. 
J'aimerai,  I  shall  love,  is  simply /e  ai  aimer^  I  have 
to  love  ;  the  idea  of  possession,  alien  to  that  of  obli- 
gation, implying  the  certainty  of  future  action.  So 
we  say  in  English,  "  I  shall  love."  Shall  expresses 
obligation,  and  obligation  implies  future  action.  This 
no  English  scholar  questions ;  and  any  one  will  easily 
perceive  the  obligatory  meaning  of  shall  in  the  phrase. 
You  shall  do  so  and  so.  The  Frencb  by  uniting  ai 
(have)  to  aimer  (to  love)  as  a  suffix  have  made  a  real 
tense.  This  is  what  is  called  a  synthetic  form  of  lan- 
guage ;  and  the  Frenchman  uses  aimerai  without  any 
thought  that  he  expresses  his  future  by  saying,  "  I 
have  to  love."  In  English,  however,  we  preserve  the 
analytic  form,  and  keep  the  words  and  the  thoughts 
separate  ;  the  idea  of  possession,  although  subtle,  in- 
tellectual, and  moral,  not  being  lost,  but  being  as  pos- 
■tively  and  absolutely  present  a?  they  usually  are  in 
war  use  of   phrases  which  have  become  so  common 


314  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

that  we  do  not  think  of  analyzing  them  in  thonght  or 
speech. 

Let  us  now  consider  tense  and  passive  voice,  so 
called,  together.  According  to  the  English  gram- 
marians, "  We  have  been  pleased  "  is  the  first  person 
plural  of  the  perfect  tense  of  the  passive  voice  of  the 
verb  please  ;  and  according  to  Professor  Whitney  (if 
I  apprehend  him  rightly)  have  has  here  lost  its  mean- 
ing of  possession,  and  is  become  a  mere  "  forma- 
tive element."  But  we  say,  "  We  have  been  much 
pleased,"  thrusting  an  adjective,  mrich,  between  the 
elements,  formative  and  other,  of  the  so-called  tense. ^ 
Now  it  is  the  function  of  an  adjective  to  modify  not 
the  part  of  a  tense,  but  a  noun  or  its  equivalent, 
which  in  this  case  is  the  participial  adjective  pleased. 
To  test  this  so-called  tense  formation  further  in  the 
same  way,  let  us  consider  the  effect  upon  it  of  the 
following  modifications  :  — 

We  have  been  pleased. 
We  have  been  much  pleased. 
We  have  all  been  pleased. 
We  have  all  been  much  pleased. 
We  all  have  been  much  pleased. 
We  have  been  all  much  pleased. 
We  all  much  pleased  have  been. 
All  we  much  pleased  have  been. 
Much  pleased  we  all  have  been. 
Much  have  we  all  been  pleased. 

It   seems   to   me   that   here  the  tense   and  voice 

1  Those  who  choose,  with  the  grammarians,  to  call  much  in  one  place 
in  adjective,  and  in  another  an  adverb,  although  it  really  expresses  the 
game  tlioiiglit,  may  call  it  here  an  adverb.  But  wlien  we  say,  "  Bacon 
wa?  a  man  of  much  wisdom,  much  the  wisest  man  of  modern  times,"  al 
though  rnrich  modilies  first  a  noun,  and  then  an  adjective,  it  would  be  difft 
tuJt  to  show  wliy  it  should  be  called  one  thing  in  one  place  and  aiiothe 
^hing  in  another  place. 


VOICE,    TENSE,    CASE,   GENDER,    ETC.  315 

'*  have  been  pleased  "  is  very  much  shaken  to  pieces. 
These  forms  of  the  same  expression  are  all  English. 
Every  one  of  them  has  the  support  of  the  best  usage, 
and  most  of  them  have  the  support  of  common  usage 
as  well  as  that  of  the  best.  But  the  so-called  aux- 
iliary verbs,  including  the  "formative  element,"  are 
separated  at  our  pleasure,  and  scattered  about  with- 
out the  slightest  regard  to  any  other  consideration 
than  the  use  of  the  words  to  express  our  thought  in 
jusi  such  a  form  as  suits  us.  And  we  may  not  only 
put  an  adjective  between  our  auxiliary  verb  and  our 
"  formative  element,"  but  we  may  do  the  same  with 
nouns  and  adverbs,  and  say,  for  example,  "  We  Amer- 
icans have  all  certainly  been  very  much  more  than 
pleased  at  the  honors  done  to  General  Grant  in  Eu- 
rope." Will  any  one  dispute  that  the  first  clause  of 
this  compound  sentence,  ending  at  "  pleased,"  is  in 
itself  a  perfect  sentence  ?  It  would  be  interesting, 
certainly,  and  perhaps  instructive,  if  any  one  who 
does  not  dispute  it  would  explain  why  it  is  any  more 
a  sentence  than  "  We  have  been  pleased,"  —  the  so- 
called  first  person  plural  of  the  perfect  tense  of  the 
passive  voice  of  the  verb  please.  Is  there  really  any 
reasonable  doubt  that  tenses  that  may  be  broken  up 
and  scattered  through  a  sentence  as  this  so-called 
tense  is  in  the  last  sentence  given  above  are  mere 
grammatical  shams  ?  What  is  the  use  of  teaching  a 
child  or  a  man  that  such  successions  of  words,  each  of 
which  has  its  own  meaning,  and  any  two  of  which 
may  be  separated  at  pleasure  by  the  introduction  of 
ather  words,  each  of  which  has  also,  no  more  nor  less, 
Us  own  meaning,  are  moods  and  voices  and  tenses  ? 

Other  languages  have   voices ;    English    has    not. 
The  phraseology,  or  the  terminology,  of  the  gram 


B16  EVEEY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

mars  of  other  languages  has  been  pedantically  ap- 
plied to  English,  to  which  it  has  no  real  relation. 
*'  Love  "  is  an  active  verb,  —  when  it  is  not  a  noun  of 
an  adjective,  —  but  it  is  not  properly  called  an  active 
voice,  because  that  expression  distinguishes  it  from  a 
passive  voice ;  and  where  is  the  passive  voice  ?  "I 
shall  have  been  loved  "  expresses  futurity,  completion 
as  to  time,  and  passivit}' ;  but  it  is  not  a  perfect  tense 
of  a  passive  voice.  If  we  had  twisted  it  round  and 
worked  it  together  into  lovdshalhaben,  and  then  into 
lovshalahen^  as  the  French  did  their  aimer  into  aime- 
rai,  so  that  we  should  say,  I  lovshalaben^  you  lovshal- 
aben,  and  so  forth,  without  thinking  of  the  meaning 
of  the  formative  elements,  or  of  the  elements  at  all, 
but  merely  regarding  it  as  a  simple  word  with  a  sim- 
ple meaning,  we  then  should  have  had  a  future  per- 
fect tense  of  a  passive  voice.  But  we  preserve  the 
analytic  form,  and,  I  think,  with  tlie  form  preserve 
the  proper  meaning  of  each  word  in  our  little  sen- 
tence. 

The  analytical  and  logical  character  of  English  is 
almost  its  distinctive  trait  among  languages.  Other 
modern  languages  are  analytical  and  logical  to  a  cer- 
tain degree,  but  very  much  less  so  than  English  is. 
To  speak  and  to  write  good  English  it  is  necessary 
only  to  choose  proper  words,  and  place  them  in  such 
an  order,  in  such  a  relative  position  to  each  other, 
that  they  will  set  forth  our  thoughts  logically.  The 
choice  of  words  is  a  matter  of  preference,  of  taste,  so 
long  as  we  use  them  in  their  proper  or  their  recog- 
nized senses.  In  all  languages  the  speaker  or  the 
.vriter  who  chooses  the  best  words  for  his  thoughts 
will  produce  the  most  pleasing  and  the  most  forcible 
impression.     And  so,  indeed,  the  order  of  words  is  ia 


VOICE,   TENSE,   CASE,   GENDER,   ETC.  317 

all  languages  to  a  certain  degree  a  matter  of  impor- 
tance ;  but  it  is  far  more  so  in  analytical  than  in  syn- 
thetical languages  (Latin  and  Greek,  for  example), 
and  most  of  all  in  English.  Moreover,  in  English  the 
position  of  words  has  something  more  than  the  impor- 
tance which  relates  to  pleasing  effect  and  to  impress- 
iveness.  It  touches  the  question  of  one  sense  or  an- 
other ;  of  sense  and  of  nonsense.  We  have  seen  that 
it  is  the  mere  position  of  a  noun  in  regard  to  a  verb 
which  decides  whether  it  expresses  a  subject  acting 
or  an  object  of  action  :  e.  g.^  "  Men  love  women  ; 
women  love  men."  This  is  and  must  needs  be  the 
case  in  languages  which  have  no  objective  or  accusa- 
tive form  of  the  noun  to  distinguish  it  when  it  has  an 
objective  sense.  If  we  were  to  write,  "Men  women 
love,"  it  would  not  be  certain  whether  men  or  women 
were  the  object  of  love,  although  it  would  probably 
be  women  ;  but  in  speech  it  would  be  decided  by  in- 
flection of  voice  and  emphasis.  The  importance  of 
the  position  of  words  increases  just  in  proportion  to 
the  analytical  character  of  a  language. 

This  matter  of  position  is  not  only  a  fact  as  to  the 
construction  of  English,  but  a  tendency.  It  is  an 
element  of  what  is  loosely  called  the  genius  of  the 
language.  This  may  be  exemplified  by  a  change 
which  has  taken  place  somewhat  recently  in  the  use, 
as  to  position,  of  the  word  only.  In  the  "  Rape  of 
Lucrece,"  Lucrece  says  to  Tarquin,  — 

"  This  deed  will  make  thee  only  loved  for  fear." 
But  she  did  not  mean  that  Tarquin  would  be  "  only 
"oved  "  because  of  fear  ;  but  that  he  would  be  loved 
>lily  for  fear.     So  Collatinus  says  of  his  dead  wife, — 

"  Let  no  mourner  say, 
He  weeps  for  her;  for  she  was  only  mine," 


818  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

meaning,  She  was  mine  only.  And  in  that  beautiful 
sonnet  (Shakespeare's  fifty-fourth)  beginning — 

"  O,  how  much  more  doth  beautj'  beauteous  seem, 
By  that  sweet  ornament  that  truth  doth  give !  " 

the  poet  says  of  wild  roses,  which  have  no  perfume, 

"  But  for  their  virtue  only  is  their  show, 
They  live  unwoo'd  and  unrespected  die  ;  " 

meaning,  not  that  the  show  or  appearance  of  wild 
roses  is  virtue  only,  but  that  their  only  virtue  is 
their  show.  A  truer  perception  of  the  significance  of 
logical  relation,  as  indicated  by  position,  has  changed 
the  usage  in  regard  to  oyily  since  Shakespeare's  time. 
For  example,  "  for  only  she  was  mine  "  means  that 
the  speaker  possessed  only  the  she  referred  to  ;  "  for 
she  was  mine  only  "  means  that  he,  and  he  only,  pos- 
sessed her  ;  "  for  she  was  only  mine,"  although  it 
is  susceptible  of  the  second  construction,  means  in 
general  acceptance  she  was  nothing  else  but  mine. 
This  illustration  of  the  effect  of  position  might  be 
carried  on  without  end;  and  it  would  be  extended 
had  I  needful  room.  Word  position  in  the  English 
sentence  is  determined  by  and  defines  the  logical  re- 
lation of  thought. 

It  is  objected,  on  the  part  of  the  grammarians, 
to  the  theory  that  English  is  grammarless  because 
it  lacks  voice,  cases,  gender,  etc.,  that  gender,  case, 
voice,  mood,  and  tense  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
forms  of  words,  but  are  '•^attributes  given  to  nouns  and 
verbs,  which  sometimes  have  means  of  showing  thoso 
attributes,  and  more  frequently  have  not."  This  is 
Bpecious,  and  to  those  whose  minds  have  been  per- 
verted by  the  study  of  English  grammar  may  seem 
plausible,  and  even  more  than  plausible.  But  first 
it  is  a  very  vague  view,  or  a  very  vague  statement  of 


VOICE,    TENSE,    CASE,    GENDER,    ETC.  319 

ft  view.  What  kind  of  attributes  can  be  given  to 
words  ?  A  man  may  have  attributes,  or  any  subject 
may  have  attributes,  which  may  not  be  shown  ;  bufc 
how  can  a  word,  which  is  a  mere  sound  or  sign  of  a 
sound,  have  an  attribute  which  does  not  appear  ? 

Passing  by  this  general  argument,  I  come  to  the 
particular  plea  that  "  a  verb  which  denotes  or  ex- 
presses passivity  is  in  the  passive  voice,  whether  that 
voice  is  shown  by  a  termination  or  by  an  auxiliary 
verb."  This  argument  has  an  inherent  incongruity 
which  destroys  it.  Like  Gonzalo's  commonwealth, 
its  latter  end  forgets  its  beginning.  It  is  quite  true 
that  a  verb  which  expresses  passivity  is  in  the  passive 
voice.  I  have  not  written  anything  to  the  contrary. 
If  any  one  will  find  me  such  a  verb  in  the  English 
language,  I  will  agree  that,  if  not  in  the  passive 
voice,  it  at  least  is  a  passive  verb.^  But  the  argu- 
ment closes  by  assuming  that  the  passivity  is  ex- 
pressed by  an  auxiliary  verb.  In  other  words,  pas- 
sivity is  expressed  not  by  the  verb  in  question,  but 
by  another  verb.  An  astonishing  argument  this  to 
prove  that  a  verb  may  express  passivity, — to  show 
that  it  cannot  do  so  except  by  means  of  another  verb. 

A  brief  illustration  will  make  this  clear.  Love  is 
a  verb ;  and  it  is  an  active  verb,  because  the  word 
love  expresses  an  action.  Now,  what  is  the  verb,  the 
word,  which  expresses  the  reception,  or  the  under- 
going, of  that  action  ?  There  is  none.  Passivity  in 
regard  to  love  is  expressed  by  "  I  am  loved."     Now, 

1  English  has  one  passive  verb,  the  only  one  known  to  me,  which  is 
now  rarely  used,  —  hight.  This  verb  needs  no  "auxiliary"  and  no  par- 
ticiple; it  means  "is  called."  Shakespeare  ases  it  several  times:  "This 
ihild  of  fancy  that  Armado  hight;"  "As  I  remember,  hight  Costard;" 
''This  grisly  beast  which  lion  hight  by  name."  It  \*  not  uncommoa  in 
more  modern  poetr}'.     It  is  a  real  passive  verb. 


320  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

in  this  plirase  there  is  no  word,  verb  or  other,  that 
expresses  passivity.  Am  is  the  only  real  verb,  and 
that  expresses  only  present  existence.  Loved  is  not 
a  verb,  but  a  participle ;  and  even  as  a  participle  it 
does  not  express  passivit}^,  but  only  perfected  action. 
In  "  I  shall  have  been  loved  "  there  are  three  verbs, 
shall,  have,  and  been,  not  one  of  which  expresses 
passivity,  and  a  participle,  loved,  which  also  has  no 
Buch  expression.  But  the  sentence  or  phrase  as  a 
whole  does  express  passivity,  perfected  and  future. 
It  seems  plain,  then,  that  there  is  in  English  no  pas- 
sive voice  of  any  verb. 

As  to  case,  it  is  urged  that  "  a  noun  used  as  the 
subject  of  an  independent  sentence  has  the  nomina- 
tive case,  whether  that  case  is  shown  by  its  position 
or  by  a  termination."  This  argument  seems  to  be 
brought  forward  in  ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  the 
word  case.  In  English  and  in  some  other  languages 
subjectivity  or  objectivity  may  be  given  to  a  word 
by  yjosition,  but  case  cannot.  For  case  —  from  casus, 
a  fall  —  means  metaphorically  something  that  has 
fallen,  and  in  the  cases  of  nouns  the  word  is  supposed 
to  have  fallen  away  from  the  normal  upright  stand- 
ard or  stem  form  of  the  word.  Therefore  it  is  that 
nouns  are  "  declined,"  that  is,  passed  through  their 
declination,  or  stages  of  failing,  to  wit,  their  cases. 
Case  without  special  form  is  impossible ;  it  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms.  And  therefore  there  is  really 
no  nominative  case,  not  only  in  English,  but  in  any 
language.  For  the  nominative  is  the  normal  form 
from  which  there  must  be  declination  (casus')  before 
there  can  be  case.  The  nominative  is  called  a  case 
Dnly  for  the  convenience  of  grammatical  study. 

Moreover,  if  the  relation  expressed  by  a  noun  puts 


VOICE,    TENSE,    CASE,    GENDER,   ETC.  321 

it,  by  position  or  otherwise,  in  a  case,  then  we  have 
not  only  a  nominative  case  and  an  objective,  but  a 
dative  case,  which  has  been  remarked  upon  previ- 
ously, on  page  286.  For  example,  when  a  lady  says 
to  her  friend  or  her  groom,  "  Put  me  on  my  horse" 
(and  she  might  much  better  say  upon  my  horse),  she 
refers  to  herself  as  the  object  of  an  action,  and  the 
English  grammarians  say  that  me  is  in  the  objective 
case.  But  when  she  says  to  her  maid,  "  Put  me  on 
a  flat-iron,"  she  does  not  mean  that  she  wishes  to  be 
put  on,  or  upon,  the  flat-iron  ;  she  means,  Put  for 
me  on  a  flat-iron.  She  uses  me  not  in  an  objective 
sense,  but  a  dative.  So  when  a  boy  says,  "  Show 
me  a  picture,"  he  means,  Show  to  me  a  picture,  show 
a  picture  to  me ;  me  is  not  used  objectively,  but 
datively,  and  "  picture  "  is  the  object  of  the  verb 
"show."i 

It  is  needless  to  carry  this  illustration  further. 
But  is  there,  because  of  this  dative  sense,  a  dative  case 
in  English?  If  aye,  then  there  is  also  a  vocative, 
when  we  call,  "  Tom  !  Tom  !  "  But  we  all  know 
that  there  is  neither  a  dative  nor  a  vocative  case  ;  and 
soon  we  shall  all  see  that  there  is  neither  an  object- 
ive nor  a  nominative  case.  We  merely  express  the 
objective,  the  dative,  and  the  vocative  idea ;  but  we 
do  it  by  the  same  case  (so  to  speak)  ;  that  is,  by  no 
case  at  all,  except  in  pronouns,  and  even  in  those  the 
dative  case  has  disappeared.  For  the  possessive  we 
have  a  real  case.     Mere  dictionary  definition  decides 

1  I  remember  a  school-fellow's  going  to  our  master  —  an  egregious 
grammarian  — and  asking  him  how  to  narse  "  Give  me  a  book  "  (or  soma 
Euch  sentence).  Pedagogus  replied,  '  In  those  cases  you  have  to  parse  me 
as  an  objective  case  governed  by  to  understood."  (See  Squeers,  in  the  first 
ihapter  of  this  division.)  And  I  remember  laughing  in  my  boyish  sleeve 
%i  the  notion  that  the  sentence  must  be  parsed,  and  at  the  fetch  by  which 
^e  feat  bad  to  be  accomplished. 
21 


322  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

this  question  so  far  as  definition  can  do  so.  As  1 
write  I  turn  to  Stormontli's  Dictionary,  —  small,  but 
the  best  I  know  of  the  English  language,  —  and  that 
defines  "case  "  as  "  that  which  falls,  comes,  or  hap- 
pens  The  infiection  of  nouns."  This  argu- 
ment for  case  is  futile,  because,  if  it  prove  anything, 
it  proves  that  which  all  the  world  knows  to  be  un- 
true. 

As  to  gender,  the  position  is  taken  that  this  gram- 
matical distinction  should  not  be  held  to  depend  on 
inflection,  if  we  express  the  same  ideas  which  are  ex- 
pressed in  other  languages  (Latin,  for  example),  by 
words  that  have  gender ;  and  this  view  is  particularly 
urged  in  regard  to  adjectives.  Let  us  see :  bonus 
liber,  a  good  book  ;  bona  domus,  a  good  house ;  bo- 
num  aratrum,  a  good  plow.  Now,  do  the  words  bon- 
us, bon-a,  and  bon-um  here  express  anything  more 
or  other  than  is  expressed  by  the  word  "  good "  ? 
Nothing.  There  is  no  question  about  the  matter. 
But  bonus,  bona,  bonum,  are  respectively  masculine, 
feminine,  and  neuter ;  and  therefore,  according  to 
this  argument,  "  good  "  must  be  masculine  in  the  first 
example,  feminine  in  the  second,  and  neuter  in  the 
third.  This  leads  the  grammarian  into  a  dreadful 
predicament ;  for  in  "  a  good  book,"  "  a  good  house," 
and  "  a  good  plow,"  the  adjective  is,  in  all  the  exam- 
ples, of  the  neuter  gender,  that  is,  of  no  gender  at 
all,  because  the  nouns  "book,"  "house,"  and  "plow" 
are  neuter.  Now,  there  was  nothing  male  in  a  book, 
or  female  in  a  house,  or  any  more  reason  why  a  plow 
should  not  be  regarded  as  either  male  or  female,  in 
the  times  of  the  ancient  Romans  than  there  is  now 
Thus  this  matter  of  gender  is  purely  grammatical, 
And  pertains  to  words  only,  not  to  things  or  even  to 


VOICE,   TENSE,   CASE,   GENDER,   ETC.  323 

thoughts,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  sex.  It  is  the 
words  for  book  and  house  and  plow  which  in  Latin 
have  gender  ;  the  things  were  as  sexless  two  thousand 
years  ago  as  they  are  now.  And  this  word-gender 
has  nothing  to  do  with  form.  Pennce  and  pennarum 
are  feminine  equally  with  penna.  Nor  has  it  even 
anything  to  do  with  termination.  Penna.,  ending  in 
a,  is  feminine,  but  domus,  ending  in  us,  is  also  fem- 
inine. Yet  dominus,  with  the  same  termination,  is 
masculine  ;  and  liber,  with  still  another  termination, 
is  also  masculine.  But  we  may  dismiss  all  this.  We 
have  no  more  anything  to  do  with  gender.  We 
simply  do  not  call  a  woman  a  man,  or  a  cow  a  bull. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

PKONOUNS. 

I  MUST  say  something  briefly  about  the  words  that 
the  grammarians  call  pronouns.  They  have  had  this 
name  ever  since  the  first  existing  systematic  treatise 
on  grammar  was  written  by  Dionysius,  surnamed 
Thrax  (that  is,  the  Thracian),  which  is  more  than  fif- 
teen hundred  years  ago.  This  name,  pronoun,  mean- 
ing "  for  a  noun,"  would  seem  to  justify  the  definition 
given  by  Lindley  Murray,  and  by  most  other  gram- 
marians, "  A  pronoun  is  a  word  used  instead  of  a 
noun,  to  avoid  a  too  frequent  repetition  of  the  same 
woi'd."  The  examples  usually  given,  which  are  of 
this  sort,  "  John  is  a  good  boy  ;  he  learns  his  task," 
do,  indeed,  support  the  definition.  For  in  such  cases 
the  word  Ms  is  used  instead  of  the  word  Johti's^  and 
it  does  enable  us  to  avoid  a  monotonous  iteration. 
But  this  definition  takes  the  most  narrow  and  limited 
view  possible  of  the  subject.  It  is  most  remarkable 
for  what  it  omits. 

We  get  a  glimpse  at  what  it  does  omit  even  in 
Lindley  Murray.  At  the  foot  of  the  page,  in  very 
small  type,  is  a  note  setting  forth  that  a  pronoun 
"  may  also  represent  an  adjective,  or  a  sentence,  or  a 
part  of  a  sentence,  or  sometimes  even  a  series  of 
propositions."  The  following  examples  are  given : 
"  They  supposed  him  to  be  innocent,  which  he  cer- 
tainly was."  "  His  friend  bore  the  abuse  ver_7  pa« 
tiently,  which  served  to  increase  his  rudeness  ;  it  pro 


PRONOUNS.  325 

duced  at  length  contempt  and  anger."  In  the  first 
of  these  examples,  the  pronoun  is  used  instead  of  the 
adjective  "•  innocent."  In  the  second  example,  the 
first  pronoun,  "  which,"  does  not  refer  even  to  a  fore- 
going sentence  or  phrase,  but  to  a  supposed  phrase, 
that  is,  "  his  bearing  the  abuse  patiently  ;  "  and  the 
second,  "  it,"  represents  the  supposed  phrase,  "  the 
increase  in  his  rudeness."  Here  we  have  at  once  an 
astonishing  enlargement  of  the  definition  that  a  pro- 
noun is  a  word  used  instead  of  a  noun,  to  avoid  too 
frequent  repetition  ;  and  when  it  is  considered  that 
this  last  use  of  pronouns  is  one  of  the  most  common, 
we  begin  to  see  that  these  so-called  make-shifts,  or 
representatives  of  nouns,  are  something  else  than  we 
have  been  taught  that  they  are. 

It  having  been  objected  to  my  citation  of  Lindley 
Murray  and  Goold  Brown  as  representative  English 
grammarians  that  those  writers  are  somewhat  old- 
fashioned,  and  that  we  have  now  grammars  both 
more  compact  and  more  rational  than  theirs,  I  quote 
from  "  The  Elements  of  the  English  Language,"  by 
Dr.  Adams,  of  University  College,  London,  fifteenth 
edition,  1877  (first  edition,  1862)  :  "  Pronouns  are 
short  words  used  to  represent  nouns  without  naming 
them.  They  thus  avoid  a  repetition  that  would  al- 
ways be  tedious  and  often  obscure."  Also  from  Pro- 
fessor Whitney's  "  Essentials  of  English  Grammar," 
the  last  and  best  book  on  its  subject :  "  A  pronoun  is  a 
word  standing  for  a  noun  or  ordinary  name,  and  may, 
like  a  noun,  be  used  as  subject  of  a  sentence."  Again, 
in  the  same  book  we  find,  "  A  pronoun  does  not  pre- 
cisely name  anything,  but  it  points  to  or  points  out 
lome  person  or  thing  that  has  been  named  before,  or 
that  is  shown  by  a  gesture,  or  is  defined  by  its  rela- 


826  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

tion  to  something  else  that  is  named."  We  thus  see 
that  the  grammarian  notion  of  a  pronoun  has  not 
changed  much,  even  in  the  mind  of  so  able  a  re- 
former of  English  grammar  as  Professor  Whitney. 

Now,  that  a  pronoun  may,  like  a  noun,  be  used  as 
the  subject  of  a  sentence  is  clear  enough  ;  but  that  it 
*s  sufficiently  defined  as  a  word  that  stands  for  a  noun 
or  ordinary  name,  or  as  one  that  points  out  some  per- 
son or  thing  that  has  been  named  before,  seems  to 
me  a  false  notion,  —  a  notion  which  has  its  origin  in 
the  name  pronoun,  and  which  has  been  handed  down, 
and  accepted  almost  without  question,  from  gramma- 
rian to  grammarian  for  centuries.  True,  Buttman 
does  say  that  "  pronouns  cannot  be  so  precisely  de- 
fined as  not  to  admit  many  words  which  may  also 
be  regarded  as  adjectives."  But  this  is  only  a  part 
of  the  confusion  which  reigns  in  grammar.  For  the 
very  grammarians  cannot  agree  among  themselves 
as  to  the  limits  between  nouns  and  adjectives,  so 
tliat  some  of  them  compromise  the  matter  by  mak- 
ing two  classes,  nouns  substantive  and  nouns  adjec- 
tive. And  there  is  a  like  dispute  as  to  whether  some 
words  are  conjunctions  or  prepositions,  and  a  decision 
that  they  are  both.  And  much  good  such  disputes 
and  such  compromises  and  decisions  are  to  people 
of  common-sense,  who  can  read  with  understanding 
and  delight,  and  write  clearly  what  they  have  to 
say,  without  knowing  a  noun  substantive  from  a 
noun  adjective,  or  a  conjunction  from  a  preposition  I 
As  to  pronouns,  Lindley  Murray  says  they  are  of 
three  kinds,  —  personal,  relative,  and  adjective  ;  but 
in  Professor  Adams's  accidence  (cited  above)  tliey 
develop  into  "  personal,  demonstrative,  relative,  in 
terrogative,    possessive,    reflective,  reciprocal,   indefi 


PRONOUNS.  6Z  ( 

nite,  and  distributive  pronouns."  Here,  as  Mrs. 
Malaprop  says,  is  "  a  nice  derangement  of  epitaphs." 
It  could  be  shown  that  there  are  not  these  nine  divis- 
ions among  pronouns,  but  that  the  uses  of  the  same 
words  run  into  and  lap  over  each  other  ;  but  even  if 
it  were  not  so,  to  what  use  this  mere  naming  of  ver- 
bal tools?  It  helps  no  one  to  understand,  to  think, 
to  speak,  or  to  write. 

The  notion  hitherto  received,  and  without  question, 
I  believe,  that  a  pronoun  is  used  instead  of  a  noun, 
or  that  it  points  to,  or  points  out,  some  person  or 
thing  that  has  been  named  before,  seems  to  me  alto- 
gether wrong,  —  so  wrong  that  I  wonder  that  any 
man  of  intelligence  who  has  examined  the  subject  and 
thought  upon  it  at  all  could  take  such  a  view  of  it  on 
a  second  thinking.     Let  us  see.     In  the  sentence, 

"For  he  who  fights  and  runs  away 
May  live  to  fight  another  daj'," 

what  noun  is  "he"  used  instead  of  ?  What  person  or 
thing  named  before  does  it  point  out  ?  In  the  well- 
known  utterance  of  one  of  the  saddest  of  those  truths 
that  seem  eternal,  "  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given, 
and  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away  that 
which  he  hath,"  what  noun  does  "him"  stand  for? 
What  person  or  thing  named  before  or  after  does 
either  "  him  "  point  out?  It  does,  by  the  aid  of  an- 
other pronoun  and  of  a  verb,  "  that  hath,"  point  out 
Bome  person,  or  rather  a  class  of  persons  ;  and  in  like, 
manner  we  know  that  the  last  "  him  "  refers  to  a 
person  or  class  other  than  that  referred  to  by  the 
first ;  but  neither  of  these  persons  or  classes  has  been 
mentioned  or  in  any  way  indicated  before.  "  Him  " 
here  means  merely  the  man,  or  those  men.  It  does 
QOt  "stand  for"  those  WDrda  anymore  than  many 


828  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

another  word  stands  for  what  it  means  ;  and  it  cer- 
tainly does  not  point  out  any  person  who  has  been 
named  before  (for  none  has  been  named),  or  who 
is  to  be  named  afterward,  for  none  is  named.  It 
is  not  a  pro-noun.  So  in  "  Who  steals  my  purse 
steals  trash,"  the  so-called  relative  pronoun  "  who  " 
means  any  man  that ;  but  it  is  not  used  instead  of 
any  noun ;  nor  does  it  refer  to  any  person  mentioned 
before.  The  relative  has  no  relation  ;  it  does  not  re- 
late. If  I  were  to  go  on  with  this  illustration,  it 
could  be  much  varied  and  yet  more  extended.  I 
bring  up  these  few  examples  merely  to  direct  the 
reader's  attention  to  the  fact,  of  which  he  may  find 
many  examples  in  his  every-day  reading,  that  a  pro- 
noun, even  a  personal  or  a  relative  pronoun,  so  called, 
is  not  necessarily  used  instead  of  another  noun  to 
prevent  repetition,  and  that  it  does  not  necessai'ily 
point  out  or  refer  to  some  person  or  thing  that  is 
named  before  or  even  after. 

The  truth  upon  this  subject  is  that  the  so-called 
pronoun,  instead  of  being  a  make-shift,  a  convenience 
to  prevent  confusion  and  monotony,  a  sort  of  appen- 
dix and  auxiliary  to  an  already  developed  vocabulary, 
is  the  noun  of  nouns,  the  word  of  words,  the  most 
important,  the  most  radical,  and  the  most  ineradicable 
element  of  language.  It  represents  the  beginning  of 
thought ;  its  evolution  is  the  first  sign  of  human  con- 
Bciousness,  —  we  may  almost  say  of  animal  conscious- 
ness. 

When  the  infant  first  knows  by  touch  that  there 
is  another  thing  in  the  world  but  itself,  the  ideas  rep- 
resented by  /and  it  are  at  once  evolved.  This  that 
feels  touch  is  "  me  ;  "  this  that  touches  is  "  not  me.' 
Here  is  the  first  dawn  of  consciousness,  if  not  the  first 


PRONOUNS.  329 

ray  of  intelligence.  "  Me  "  and  "  not  me  ;  "  in  tlii8 
twin-born  thoiiglit  conies  the  knowledge  of  self-exist- 
ence and  of  existence  outside  of  self,  which  is  the  be- 
ginning of  all  knowledge,  the  starting-point  of  all 
thought;  and  in  "me"  and  "not  me"  are  involved 
the  germs  of  all  the  so-called  pronouns.  "  Not  me  " 
is  "  it ;  "  and  "  he  "  and  "  she  "  are  (mentally,  not 
etymologically)  mere  modifications  and  divisions  of 
"  it,"  consequent  upon  after-experience  and  reflection. 
So  also  is  "  you  "  a  mere  modification  of  the  idea 
"  not  me  "  expressed  by  "  it."  "  We  "  is  an  expan- 
sion of  "  I ;  "  "  they  "  an  expansion  of  "  it."  There 
are  really  but  two  persons,  the  first  and  the  second, 
representing  the  "  me  "  and  the  "  not  me,"  but  the 
second  has  been  divided,  and  a  third  made  by  the 
introduction  of  the  modified  form  of  the  "  not  me  " 
before  mentioned. 

From  these  considerations  it  seems  clear  that  the 
pronoun  expresses  the  first,  the  most  important,  and 
the  most  inexpugnable  idea  that  finds  utterance  in 
language.  For  it  will  be  found  that  ivho,  what,  this, 
that,  and  the  rest  have  the  same  relations,  or  a  modi- 
fication of  the  same  relations,  to  the  expression  of  the 
first  act  of  consciousness  and  cogitation  that  I,  you, 
and  it  have  ;  in  fact,  that  the  former  words  express 
ideas  which  are  directly  ^-elated  to  and  involved  in 
the  latter. 

The  word  called  pronoun,  then,  so  far  from  being  a 
mere  convenient  substitute  for  something  more  impor- 
tant,—  a  remplagant,  to  use  an  operatic  phrase,  —  is 
Jie  word  which  expresses  the  first  distinction  made 
by  the  human  intellect ;  it  is  the  word  of  substantive 
distinction,  by  which  persons  and  things  are,  first, 
separated  from  the  ego,  the  "  me,"  and,  next,  from 
<4ach  other ;   a  distinction    which    precedes  all  othei 


130  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

distinguishing,  as,  for  example,  that  into  living  and 
not  living,  not  to  say  into  classes  of  animals  and  indi- 
viduals. The  pronoun  is  the  first  existing  substantive 
noun. 

It  may  be  owing,  but  I  am  not  now  prepared  to 
Bay  that  it  is  owing,  to  this  primordial  quality  in 
pronouns  that  in  all  languages  they  are  the  most  an- 
cient and  immovable  parts  of  speech,  that  they  seem 
to  have  a  peculiar  origin  and  development,  and  that 
in  all  the  Indo-European  tongues  the  principal  pro- 
nouns are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  same.  The 
number  of  people  of  all  climes  and  tongues  to  whom 
me  has  the  same  signification  (with  modifications  of 
pronunciation  too  slight  for  consideration)  is  to  be 
counted  only  by  hundreds  of  millions,  and  this  iden- 
tity of  the  expression  of  self  as  distinguished  from  not 
self  stretches  back  into  the  remotest  ages.  And  pro- 
nouns, although  they  are  slightly  modified  in  sound, 
are  not  added  to  or  lessened  in  number.  The  dual 
number  has  disappeared  and  with  it  the  dual  pro- 
noun ;  but  except  this  change,  the  ranks  of  the  pro- 
nouns in  the  Indo-European  tongues  stand  much  aa 
they  did  at  the  dawn  of  the  historic  period.  We  have 
Iropped  nouns  and  verbs  by  the  hundred ;  we  have 
taken  new  ones  in  their  places  ;  but  the  pronouns 
stand.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  new  pronoun,  or 
oven  a  modern  pronoun ;  and  to  make  and  introduce 
a  new  pronoun,  as,  for  example,  an  impersonal  one 
in  English  for  the  expression  of  relative  distinction 
without  sex,  would  be  a  task  of  such  difficulty  that 
t  might  be  set  down  as  impossible.  This  is  but  a 
rAeagre  and  sketchy  presentation  of  a  view  of  the  so- 
ialled  pronoun  which  I  venture  to  think  is  worthy  ot 
consideration  by  those  who  think  at  all  about  Ian* 
guage. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

SHALL  AND   WILL. 

At  the  request  of  many  readers,  I  shall  say  some* 
thing  more  than  I  have  already  said  (in  "  Words  and 
their  Uses  ")  on  the  words  at  the  head  of  this  chap- 
ter. 

The  mistakes  made  in  the  use  of  sliall  and  will^  and 
of  should  and  would ^  by  persons  who  are  not  unlet- 
tered, and  who  are  wont  to  hear  English  well  spoken, 
must  come,  it  should  seem,  either  from  sheer  careless- 
ness or  inapprehensiveness,  or  from  the  opposite  tend- 
ency to  a  fussy  taking  of  thought  about  propriety 
and  grammar  in  speech,  instead  of  talking  right  on 
in  words  as  they  come  by  habit,  and  caring^only  to 
utter  a  thought  or  to  tell  a  stoi-y.  And  the  latter  is 
rather  more  apt  to  cause  confusion  and  entanglement 
than  the  former.  Most  true  is  this  about  such  alter- 
luitive  words  as  shall  and  ivill^  should  and  would^  any 
attempt  to  use  which  with  a  conscious  conformity  to 
the  rules  of  "good  grammar"  will,  in  most  cases, 
quite  surely  —  to  speak  elegantly  —  eventuate  in  ca- 
lamity. The  best  way  is  to  give  yourself  no  trouble 
at  all  about  your  grammar.  Read  the  best  authors, 
converse  with  the  best  speakers,  and  know  what  you 
mean  to  say,  and  you  will  speak  and  write  good  Eng- 
lish, and  may  let  grammar  go  to  its  own  place. 

In  recommending  the  reading  of  the  best  authors 
^or  this  purpose,  if  for  no  other  ;^and  this  is  the  least 
'important  for  which  they  should  be  read),  I  do  not 


332  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

mean  that  you  should  look  to  them  as  "  authorities," 
and  use  no  word  or  form  of  speech  for  which  you  do 
not  find  the  warrant  of  example  in  their  writings. 
That  would  be  almost  as  bad  as  a  solicitude  about 
"  speaking  good  grammar."  There  was  never  a  more 
absurd  resolution  than  that  of  Fox,  to  admit  no  word 
into  his  history  (never  finished)  for  which  he  had  not 
the  authority  of  Dryden.  The  effect  upon  the  mind 
of  the  reading  of  the  best  authors  is  like  that  of  as- 
sociation with  the  best  bred  people  upon  manners, 
which,  as  far  even  as  external  politeness  goes,  is  much 
better  than  a  pocket  copy  of  my  Lord  Chesterfield's 
letters.  Genuine  politeness  comes  only  by  a  union  of 
inward  grace  and  outward  culture  ;  and  so  a  real  mas- 
tery of  language  is  in  a  great  measure  a  birthright, 
like  beauty,  or  strength,  or  stature. 

As  to  shall  and  will^  something  may  doubtless  be 
done  by  study,  and  by  taking  thought  to  check  bad 
habits  and  correct  the  result  of  unfortunate  associa- 
tions. The  mistake  most  commonly  made  in  the  use 
of  these  words,  and  the  one,  therefore,  most  carefully 
to  be  avoided,  is  the  use  of  will  for  shall,  and  of  the 
corresponding  would  for  should.  Shall  is  much  less 
often  used  for  will.  And  yet  in  the  word  shilly- 
shally., which  is  upon  everybody's  lips,  is  petrified  the 
Tule  and  the  example  in  regard  to  shall  and  will. 

Shilly-shally  is  merely  a  colloquial  corruption  of 
"Shall  I?  Shall  I?"  and  thus  expresses  the  condi- 
tion of  a  man  who  is  vacillating  between  two  courses 
of  conduct.  It  has  been  made  into  a  participle,  per- 
haps even  into  a  verb.  A  man  who  "  stands  shilly- 
shallying  about  a  woman,"  as  the  ladies  say,  is  a  man 
who,  as  they  also  sometimes  say,  does  n't  know  his 
jwn  mind  about  her,  —  a  mental  condition  for  whicb 


SHALL   AND   WILL.  333 

the  sex  has  no  very  great  liking.  Now  no  one  would 
Bay  that  a  man  stood  asking  himself,  "  Will  I  ?  Will 
I  ? "  and  yet  such  is  essentially  the  mistake  most 
frequently  made  in  regard  to  the  use  of  these  words 
in  conversation.  We  hear  some  people  say,  "  What 
will  I  do  ?  "  and  even,  "  Will  I  do  "  thus  or  so  ?  —  the 
offenders  in  these  cases  being  generally  of  what  some 
people  humorously  call  the  Hibernian  persuasion,  — 
an  expression,  by  the  way,  for  which  there  is  "  au- 
thority "  of  very  respectable  standing  and  antiquity. 
Among  people  of  Anglo-Saxon  race  and  of  average 
education  the  mistake,  when  made,  most  commonly 
takes  the  indicative  form,  thus  :  "  I  will  go  to  bed 
[elegantly,  retire]  at  ten  o'clock  to-night,"  or  "  We 
ivill  breakfast  at  eight  to-morrow,"  instead  of,  "  I 
shall  go  to  bed,"  etc.,  "  We  shall  breakfast,"  etc. 
Not  quite  so  often  we  hear,  "  I  would  be  glad  to  go," 
*'  We  ivould  be  happy  to  see  you,"  instead  of,  "I 
should  be  glad,"  "  We  should  be  happy,"  etc. 

As  striking  examples  of  the  misuse  of  ivill  and 
would  (which,  as  I  have  said,  is  the  most  common  form 
of  this  speech-illness),  I  give  the  following  extracts 
from  a  newspaper  of  the  highest  class,  and  one  of  tlie 
most  carefully  edited  in  the  country.  If  the  editor 
Baw  them,  they  must  have  set  his  teeth  on  edge  :  — 

"  An  order  was  made  that  supplemental  mails  to  all  Euro- 
pean steamers  will  [shall]  be  dispatched  to  the  steamer  f '•om 
the  main  office  after  the  close  of  the  regular  mail." 

"  M.  Soutzo,  who  killed  Prince  Ghika  in  the  recent  due' 
near  Paris,  has  written  an  impudent  letter  from  Luxembourg 
io  the  Procureur  of  the  French  republic,  saying  that  aftei' 
he  duel  he  left  Paris,  lest  his  arrest  would  [shouliV^  cause 
bis  mother  serious  emotion." 

In  common  conversation  and  in  ordinary  writing 
these  forms  of  the  shall-and-will  idiom  are  those  in 


334  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

most  frequent  use,  and  therefore  those  most  frequently 
misused.  There  are  other  confusions ;  but  they  per- 
tain to  subtler  forms  of  thought.  A  speaker  once  well 
grounded  in  I  shall,  I  should,  we  shall,  we  should,  you 
will,  you  would,  as  mere  declarations  of  future  action, 
and  I  will,  I  would,  we  will,  we  would,  as  expressions 
of  present  will  or  determination  as  to  future  action,  and 
you  shall,  you  should,  as  expressions  of  obligation  or 
necessity  in  future  action,  will  rarely  go  astray  upon 
other  points,  if  he  has  any  familiarity  with  the  writ- 
ings of  good  authors. 

The  rule  and  the  reason  of  this  idiom  will  be  found 
set  forth  with  sufficient  clearness  in  almost  all  good 
grammars, — they  have  at  least  that  value.^  But 
upon  solicitation,  they  are  set  forth  briefly  here  in  a 
form  somewhat  differing  from  any  one  in  which  I 
have  ever  seen  them  ;  they  are  as  follows  :  — 

Will  in  the  first  person  expresses  a  wish  and  an  in- 
tention, or  a  promise;  as,  "  I  will  go,"  that  is,  I  mean 
to  go,  or  I  promise  to  go.  Will  is  never  to  be  used  as 
a  question  with  the  first  person  ;  as,  "  Will  I  go  ?  " 
A  man  cannot  ask  if  he  wills  to  do  anything.  That 
he  must  know,  and  only  he  knows. 

Will  in  the  second  person  declares  or  foretells; 
as,  "  You  will  go  with  him."  Hence  it  is  used  with 
courteous  authority  as  a  command,  because  it  foretells 
something  that  must  happen.  A  superior  officer  says 
to  a  subordinate,  "  You  will  report  yourself,"  etc. 
As  a  question,  will  in  the  second  person  asks  the  in- 
tention of  the  person  addressed ;  as,  "  Will  you  go  to 
morrow?"  that  is,  Do  you  mean  to  go  to-morrow? 

Will  in  the  third  person  also  declares  or  foretells 

^  Almost  all  grammars  in  common  use  have,  however,  the  fault  of  giv 
tag  "  I  shall  or  will  "  for  the  future  tense,  as  if  either  form  were  to  h# 
ued  indiscriminately. 


SHALL   AND   WILL.  335 

E8,  "  He  will  come,"  that  is,  He  is  coming,  and  may 
be  looked  for.  As  a  question,  will  in  the  third  person 
asks  what  is  to  be  the  future  action  of  the  person 
spoken  of,  with  a  necessary  reference  to  intention  ; 
as,  "  Will  he  go?"  that  is.  Is  he  going?  Does  he 
mean  to  go,  and  is  his  going  sure  ?  In  the  third  per- 
son, will  bas  of  course  no  mandatory  force. 

Shall  in  the  first  person  simply  declares  or  fore- 
tells, without  any  reference  to  wish ;  but  when  it  an- 
nounces personal  action,  it  of  course  may  accompany 
intention  ;  as,  "  I  shall  go,"  that  is,  I  am  going,  I  am  to 
depart  hence.  Used  as  a  question  in  the  fi.rst  person, 
it  is  a  simple  inquiry  as  to  the  future ;  as,  "  Shall  I 
find  him  ?  "  that  is.  May  I  expect  to  find  him  ?  or  it 
asks  direction  ;  as,  "  Shall  I  go  ?  "  that  is.  Decide  for 
me  as  to  my  going. 

Shall  in  the  second  person  and  in  the  third  de- 
clares authoritatively,  and  therefore  promises,  com- 
mands, or  threatens  ;  as,  "  You  shall  be  paid,"  "  Thou 
shalt  not  steal,"  "They  shall  suffer," — which  need 
no  paraphrase. 

Would  and  should  conform  to  the  usage  of  ivill 
and  shall ;  ivoidd  referring  to  an  exercise  of  "will,  and 
shoidd  implying  contingent,  dependent  action,  or  ob- 
ligation. 

As  the  uncertainty  felt  by  some  as  to  the  use  of 
ihall  and  will  is  in  regard  to  the  persons  to  which 
they  are  to  be  severally  applied,  they,  with  woidd 
and  should,  are  arranged  below  under  the  headings 
of  the  three  persons,  in  conformity  to  the  rules  given 
above :  — 

FIRST   PERSON. 

Simple  Future .  1  shall  f^o.  We  shall  go. 

Contingent  or  Obligatory I  should  go.  We  should  go. 

Interrogative  Simple Shall  I  go?  Shall  we  go? 

'nterrogative  Coatingent,  or  Obligatory    .  Should  I  go7  Should  we  eoi 


336  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

SECOND    PKRSON. 

Simple  Future You  will  go. 

Contingent  or  Obligatory You  should  go. 

Interrogative  'limple       Shall  you  go? 

Interrogative    'ontingent,  or  Obligatory Should  you  goV 

THIRD    PERSON. 

Simple  Future He  will  go.  They  will  go. 

Contingent  or  Obligatory He  should  go.  They  should  go. 

Interrogative  Simple Will  he  go?  TFiVMheygo? 

IntenOg,ative  Contigent,  or  Obligatory    .  Should  he  go?  Should  they  go? 

These  forms  imply  no  exercise  of  the  will  on  the 
part  of  the  person  who  speaks,  or  in  regard  to  the 
person  spoken  to  or  spoken  of.  "  I  shall  go  "  means 
merely  (as  we  have  seen  before),  I  am  going  ;  "  You 
will  go,"  you  are  going;  "  He  will  go,"  he  is  going. 
"  I  should  go  "  means,  I  ought  to  go,  or,  T  would  go  if 
there  were  reason ;  and  in  "  You  should  go  "  and  "  He 
or  they  should  go  "  should  has  the  same  limitation  of 
meaning.  When  will  is  exercised  or  implied,  the 
future  action  may  be  called  determining,  and  is  ex- 
pressed as  follows  :  — 

FIRST    PERSON. 

Determining  Future I  will  go.  We  will  go. 

Contingent  Determining I  would  go.  We  would  go. 

Interrogative  Obligatory  Determining    .  Should  I  go?  Should  we  go? 

Interrogative  Contingent  [rare].    .     .     .  Would  I  go?  Would  we  go? 

SECOND    PERSON. 

Determining  Future You  shall  go. 

Contingent  Determining You  would  go. 

Interrogative  Determining )Fj7Zyougo? 

Interrogative  Contingent  Determining TrowWyougo? 

THIRD    PERSON. 

Determining  Future He  shall  go.  They  shall  go- 

Contingent  Determining He  would  go  They  would  go 

interrogative  Determining Shall  he  go?  Shall  they  go? 

Interrogative  Contingent  Determining    .  Would  he  go?  Would  they  go? 

The  rules  above  given,  and  the  classification  by 
persons  which  follows  them,  cover  all  the  uses  of  shah 
and  will,  should  and  would,  with  perhaps  one  excep 


SHALL   AND    WILL.  387 

tion,  and  may,  I  believe,  be  relied  upon  by  those  who 
seek  a  guide  in  this  matter.  It  seems  to  me,  how- 
aver,  that  rules  and  classification  of  such  subjects  are, 
for  practical  purposes,  of  little  value,  or  rather  of 
none  ;  sometimes  of  less  than  none.  They  who  need 
them  cannot  apprehend  them  and  apply  them ;  they 
who  can  master  them  are  they  who  have  no  need  of 
them.  But  still,  "  Would  you  go  ?  "  is  an  interrogative 
contingent  determining  future  form  ;  and  it  may  be 
of  use  to  some  persons  to  be  told  that  it  is  so. 

As  to  would  and  should,  it  will  be  found  that,  with 
one  exception,  to  be  remarked  upon  hereafter,  what- 
ever the  connection  in  which  they  appear,  they  are 
used,  the  former  with  some  implication  of  will,  the 
latter  with  some  implication  of  obligation.  For  ex- 
ample, would,  when  it  expresses  a  habit  or  a  custom, 
as,  "  She  would  weep  all  day,"  "  He  would  bluster 
like  Herod,"  implies  a  habitual  exercise  of  will.  In 
such  phrases  as,  "  I  would  have  you  take  this  to 
heart,"  the  expression  of  will  is  very  plain  ;  and  in 
such  as,  "  Would  that  it  were  night !  Would  that 
it  wei*e  morning ! "  mere  will  or  strong  wish  is  ex- 
pressed, and  Tvould  can  hardly  be  called  an  "  auxiliary  " 
by  any  grammarian.  Consequently,  when  will  or 
wish  is  expressed  by  any  other  part  of  a  phrase,  loould 
becomes  superfluous  and  out  of  place.  Expressing 
willingness,  we  say,  "  I  would  grant  your  request ;  " 
but  if  we  introduce  willingly  or  with  pleasure,  we  use 
should,  and  say,  "  I  should  willingly,  or  with  pleasure, 
^rant  your  request,"  not,  '•'-1  ivoidd  willingly,"  etc. 
In  like  manner  we  say,  "  I  will  see  you  to-morrow ;  " 
out  if  we  add  an  expression  of  pleasure,  "  I  shall  be 
glad,  or  happ3%  to  see  you  to-morrow  "  not,  "  I  will 
be  glad,"  etc.    For  example  :  — 

22 


838  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

"  Lord  Strathmore  gives  me  commission  to  say,  he  shcUl 
be  extremely  glad  to  see  you  at  Glames."  (Gray,  Letters, 
iv.  67.) 

"  The  editor  cannot  conclude  without  adding  that  he  shall 
be  happy  to  receive  hints  and  materials  for  the  improvement 
and  better  elucidation  of  the  Spectator  and  Guardian,"  etc. 
(John  Nichols,  Advertisement  to  the  Tatler,  ed.  1786.) 

Both  these  examples  are  formally  incorrect ;  for  in 
both  the  third  person  is  used,  and  that  requires  will^ 
—  "  He  will  be  happy,"  etc.  But  they  are  the  more 
impressive  because  they  show  the  injQaence  of  the 
expression  of  preference.  Lord  Strathmore  said  to 
Gray,  "I  shall  be  extremely  glad,"  etc.,  and  Gray 
repeated  what  his  lordship  had  said.  Nichols,  writing 
in  the  third  person,  but  thinking  in  the  first,  says  of 
himself,  "  He  shall  be  happy  to  receive  hints ; "  as 
speaking  he  would  have  said,  "  I  shall  be  happy," 
etc. 

In  the  phrases,  "  You  should  do  this  "  and  "  He 
should  not  do  that,"  the  expression  of  obligation, 
di.ty,  debt,  is  very  plain  ;  and  even  when  should  is 
used  to  express  design  or  plan,  as  "  Under  the  cix*- 
cumstances  I  should  do  thus,  or  so,"  there  is  an  ex- 
pression of  obligation,  of  something  owed  to  the  cir- 
cumstances. 

Briefly,  will  and  tvould  refer  directly  or  indirectly 
to  the  exercise  of  will ;  shall  and  should  imply  debt, 
owing,  obligation. 

Example  in  regard  to  language  is  much  more  val- 
uable than  precept ;  and  particularly  is  it  so  in  regard 
*;o  the  subject  under  discussion.  I  therefore  give  here 
a  few  passages  in  which  the  correct  distinction  in  the 
nse  of  these  words  is  very  clearly  and  sharply  drawn 
T'hey  are  from  the  wc^ks  of  authors  of  ri^putation,  who 


SHALL    AND    WILL.  339 

$xe  too  modern  to  have  any  odor  ot  antiquity  about 
them,  and  who,  with  one  exception,  are  noted  for  the 
care  and  precision  of  their  writing  ;  and  yet  that  one 
excepted  author,  the  first  one  cited,  furnishes  the  best 
example.  I  do  not  know  in  English  literature  an- 
other passage  in  which  the  distinction  between  shall 
and  will  and  would  and  should  is  at  once  so  elegantly, 
BO  variously,  so  precisely,  and  so  compactly  illustrated 
as  in  the  following  lines  from  a  song  in  Sir  George 
Etherege's  "  She  Would  if  She  Could  :  "  — 

"  How  long  I  shall  love  him  I  can  no  more  tell, 
Than,  had  I  a  fever,  when  I  should  be  well. 
My  passion  shall  kill  me  before  I  tvill  show  it, 
And  yet  I  wou'd  give  all  the  world  he  did  know  it ; 
But  oh  how  I  sigh,  when  I  think,  shou'd  he  woo  me, 
I  cannot  refuse  what  I  know  wou'd  undo  me."i 

(Act  v.,  Scene  1,  ed.  1704.) 

This  and  the  following  passages,  from  the  same  au- 
thor and  from  others,  may  well  be  read  with  refer- 
ence to  the  rules  and  classification  given  above  :  — 

Gat.  Letters  !  Bless  me,  what  tvill  this  come  to  ? 

Court.  To  that  none  of  us  shall  have  cause  to  repent,  I 
h  »pe,  madam. 

(The  same,  iv.  2.) 

Med.  Where  shall  we  dine  to-day  ? 

Dor.  "Where  you  will. 

(Etherege,  Sir  Fopling  Flutter,  i.  1 .) 

"  I  must  give  notice  to  my  correspondents  for  the  future, 
who  shall  apply  to  me  on  this  occasion,  that  as  I  shall  decide 
Dothing  unadvisedly,  etc However,  for  the  future  I 

1  Observe  the  lightness,  freedom,  and  idiomatic  ease  of  this  cleverly 
jonstructed  and  almost  colloquial  song  —  none  the  less  admirable  in  these 
respects  because  of  its  freedom  in  another  sense.  It  is  written  throughout 
in  the  best  English  that  is  spoken,  —that  of  a  well-bred,  but  not  necessa- 
rily much  educated,  and  decidedlj'  un-lnerary  woman,  who  has  acquired 
ter  mother  tongue  unconsciously  by  intercourse,  all  her  life,  with  w».)t 
Hred  people. 


840  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

ihall  have  an  eye  to  the  diet  of  this  great  city,  and  will  reo 
ommend  the  best  and  most  wholesome  food,  etc."  (Addi* 
Bon,  Tatler,  No.  147.) 

"  .  .  .  .  in  short,  a  thousand  matters  that  you  shall  not 
know  till  you  give  me,"  etc.  (Gray,  Letters,  ii.  6.) 

"  If  wishes  could  turn  to  realities,  I  would  fling  down  my 
law  books,"  etc.     (The  same,  ii.  7.) 

" .  .  .  .  and  I  never  desire  to  part  with  the  remembrance 
of  that  loss,  nor  would  wish  you  shoidd."  (The  same,  iv.  28.) 

"  If  he  does,  I  will  send  him  (in  a  packet  to  you)  the  same 
things  I  shall  send  to  Dodsley."  (The  same,  iv.  76.) 

"  I  believe  soon  I  shall  bear  to  see  nobody.  I  do  hate  all 
hereabouts  already,  except  one  or  two.  I  will  have  my  din- 
ner brought  upon  my  table  in  my  absence,  and  the  plates 
fetched  away  in  my  absence,  and  nobody  shall  see  me." 
(Shenstone,  Letters,  No.  16.) 

"  I  have  an  old  aunt  that  visits  me  sometimes,  whose  con- 
versation is  the  perfect  counterpart  of  them.  She  shall  fetch 
a  long-winded  sigh,  with  Dr.  Young,  for  a  wager."  (The 
same,  No.  36.) 

"  The  minister  who  should  propose  it  would  be  liable  to 
be  told,"  etc.  (Helps,  Friends  in  Council,  ii.  5.) 

"  .  .  .  and  therefore  it  was  not  to  be  presumed  that  they 
would  do  anything  wrong."   (The  same.  Slavery,  ii.) 

"  It  was  one  of  the  deep  superstitions  of  Realmah  that  if 
he  woidd  succeed  no  form  of  life  shoidd  be  hostile  to  him." 
(The  same,  Realmah,  chap,  xvi.) 

In  the  second  passage  from  Shenstone,  "  She  shall 
fetch  a  long-winded  sigh,"  shall  has  a  certain  bind- 
ing, obligatory  force,  as  if  he  had  said,  "  I  promise 
you,  I  undertake,  that  she  shall,"  etc.  It  indicates 
the  state  of  mind  which  leads  to  a  bet.  The  third 
passage  from  Helps  illustrates  not  only  the  distino 
tive  meanings  of  ivould  and  should,  but  the  peculiai 
change  in  the  meaning  of  a  sentence  which  follows  a 


SHALL    AND   WILL.  341 

ihange  of  their  places,  and  putting  one  in  the  stead 
of  tlie  other.  "  If  he  would  succeed,  no  form  of  life 
should  be  hostile,"  means,  If  he  wished  to  succeed, 
no  form  of  life  ought  to  be  hostile,  etc. ;  but  "  If  he 
should  succeed,  no  form  of  life  ivould  be  hostile," 
means,  In  case  of  his  success,  he  would  find  no  form 
of  life  hostile,  etc. 

There  is  a  use  of  should  which  can  hardly  be  de- 
termined by  the  rules,  or  disposed  under  any  one  of 
the  heads  above  given.  It  generally  appears  in  an 
impersonal  construction;  as,  '•'■It  should  seem  thus," 
"  Should  it  prove  so."  As  would  conforms  to  will  and 
as  we  have  '  He  (or  it)  will  seem,"  we  should  ex- 
pect, "  He  would  seem,"  and  so,  "  It  would  seem." 
But  the  best  usage  for  centuries  has  been,  *'  It  should 
seem,"  "  One  should  think,"  etc.  Here  are  a  few  ex- 
amples, beginning  with  the  Elizabethan  period,  before 
which,  according  to  my  present  memory  of  my  read- 
ing, the  impersonal  use  of  should  is  not  common  :  — 

"  It  should  seem  by  the  lawes  of  Lycurgus  ....  that 
the  Grecians,"  etc.  (Lloyd's  Conference  of  Divers  Lawes, 
1602,  page  74.) 

"  Nevertheless,  it  should  seem  that  the  Doctrine  of  Abu- 
beyner  hath  not  lost  all  force  ;  for  the  Examples  are  many 
71  all  Saracens  Lands."  (Sir  Walter  Ealeigh,  Three  Dis- 
courses, ed.  1702,  Ecclesiastical  Power.) 

"  He  is  no  suitor,  then  ?  So  it  should  seem."  (Jonson, 
Magnetic  Lady,  i.  1.) 

"  It  should  seem  so  certainly  ;  for  her  breath  is  yet  in- 
flamed." (Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Knight  of  the  Burning 
Pestle,  V  2.) 

Phil.     I  suspect  this  shrewdly  1 
Is  it  his  daughter  that  the  people  call 
The  miller's  fair  maid? 
2  Lord.    It  should  seem  so,  sir 

(Fletcher,  The  Maid  in  the  Mill,  Hi.  t.) 


542  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

"  But  finding  him,  as  it  should  seem,  by  nature  little  stu 
dious."     (Reliquiae  Wottonianag,  page  76,  ed.  1652.) 

"  But  it  should  seem  the  very  horror  of  the  fact  had  stu- 
pefied all  curiosity."     (The  same,  page  117.) 

"  An  island  in  the  air  inhabited  by  men,  who  were  able 
(as  it  should  seem)  to  raise  or  sink  it  as  they  pleased." 
(Swift,  Gulliver's  Voyage  to  Laputa,  chap,  i.) 

"  The  royal  power,  it  should  seem,  might  be  intrusted 
in  their  hand^."  (Hume,  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p. 
883.) 

"  In  judging  only  from  the  nature  of  things,  and  without 
the  surer  aid  of  the  Divine  Revelation,  one  should  be  apt  to 
embrace  the  opinion  of  Diodorus  Siculus."  (Warbvirton, 
Divine  Legation,  vol.  ii.,  p.  81.) 

"  .  .  .  .  considering  which,  one  should  imagine  it  ought  to 
be  larger  than  one  finds  it."   (Gray,  Letters,  Sec.  2,  Let.  v.) 

"  It  should  seem  the  many  lies  discernible  in  books  of 
travel  may  be  owing  to,"  etc.  (Shenstone,  Works,  1764, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  192.) 

"  Richard  Greenham  ....  became  minister  of  Dry 
Drayton,  three  miles  distant,  where  it  should  seem  from  a 
rhyming  proverb,"  etc.  (Gilchrist's  Note  to  Bishop  Cor- 
bet's Distracted  Puritane,  page  246.) 

"  .  .  .  .  and  one  should  suppose  that  a  body  which  died 
of  such  a  distemper  must  contain  in  a  high  degree,"  etc. 
(Wx-axall's  Tour,  1775,  page  403.) 

"  One  should  have  imagined  that  echoes,  if  not  entertain- 
ing, must  at  least  have  been  harmless."  (White's  Natural 
History  of  Selborne,  Letter  80,  February  12,  1778.) 

"  As  one  should  suppose,  from  the  burning  atmosphere 
ivhich  they  inhabit,  they  are  a  thirsty  race,"  etc.  (The 
lame.  Letter  89.) 

"  You  are  not  exactly  the  person  from  whom  one  shonla 
expect  fables."     (Helps,  Friends  in  Council,  chap,  vi.) 

Examples  of  tliis  kind  might,  of  course,  be  given 
v^ithout  numbev,  and  so  easily  that  to  those  who  have 


SHALL   AND   WILL.  343 

considered  this  subject  these  may  seem  superfluous, 
except  for  the  sequel.  I  add  instances  cf  a  like  use 
of  should,  not  impersonal :  — 

"...  .  here  a  shepherd's  boy  pipuig  as  though  he  should 
never  be  old."     (Sidney,  Arcadia.) 

" ....  if  hee  had  traced  the  nature  of  the  soule  from 
its  first  principles,  hee  could  not  have  suspected  it  should 
sleepe  in  the  grave,"  etc.  (Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  On  Religio 
Medici,  1G43,  page  12.) 

*'  One  might  imagine  that  the  latter,  indebted,  etc 

should  have  readily  repaid  this  poetical  obligation."  (Shen- 
Btone,  Works,  1764,  vol.  ii.,  p.  177.) 

" .  .  .  .  and  one  would  imagine  if  that  argument  concern- 
ing the  distance  of  the  rhymes  in  [Lycidas]  were  pressed 
home  in  a  public  essay,  it  should  be  sufficient  to  extirpate 
that  kind  of  verse  forever."     (vShenstone,  Letters,  No.  62.) 

"  It  will  be  seen  that,  although  the  letter  p  should  seem 
to  have  been  fully  recognized,"  etc.  (Prompt.  Parv.,  pref- 
ace, xlix.) 

The  impersonal  use  of  should  where,  according  to 
analogy,  we  should  look  for  n^ould  I  shall  not  under- 
take to  explain  ;  for  showing  what  it  is  and  what  it 
is  like  can  hardly  be  called  explanation.  It  will  be 
Been  that  in  all  these  examples,  instead  of  shoidd,  we 
might  use  in  some  cases  ought,  in  others  might,  al- 
though we  should  in  either  case  not  express  fully  and 
exactly  the  sense  of  the  original  phrase,  in  which 
should  conveys  something  of  the  sense  of  each  of 
those  words.  This  use  of  should,  and  more  rarely  of 
shall,  corresponds  to  that  of  the  German  soil,  which 
is  used  to  convey  a  doabtful  or  questionable  assertion, 
one  for  which  the  speaker  does  not  answer ;  as,  for 
sxample,  Sie  sollen  es  gethan  hahen,  which,  although 
ioVeu  =  shall,  means,  It  is  sail  that  he  has  done  it, 


34-4  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

He  may  have  done  it.  (And  yet  in  a  mandatory 
sense  we  have  Er  soil  gleich  gehen  =  He  shall  go  in- 
stantly.) 

This,  the  subtlest  form  of  this  idiom,  appears  with 
its  most  delicate  signification  in  the  phrase,  now 
rarely  heard  or  seen,  "  as  who  should  say."  For  ex- 
ample :  — 

■■'  As  who  should  say,  God  hath  given  you  ceremonies, 
but  ye  know  not  the  use  of  them."  (Tyndale,  Prologue  to 
the  Five  Books  of  Moses,  1530,  vol.  ii.,  ed.  1828,  p.  22.) 

"  As  who  should  say,  Lo !  thus  my  strength  is  tried." 
(Shakespeare,  Venus  and  Adonis,  1.  280.) 

"  ....  as  who  should  say.  He  would  rather  they  would 
turn  from  their  wickedness  and  folly."  (Burthogge,  Causa 
Dei,  1675,  page  150.) 

This  idiom,  however,  seems  not  to  have  been  al- 
ways well  apprehended,  and  would  has  been  used  by 
good  writers  instead  of  should.  Even  Burthogge, 
quoted  above,  a  learned  .writer  of  excellent  English, 
elsewhere  in  the  same  work  furnishes  the  following 
examples  :  — 

".  .  .  .  that  there  is  a  Blessed  Begotten  God,  as  who 
woidd  say,  the  Son."     (Causa  Dei,  page  257.) 

"  As  who  luordd  say,  that  there  is  God,  the  Son,"  etc. 
(The  same,  page  259.) 

So  writers  of  repute  give  support  to  the  use  of 
"it  would  seem  "  and  "one  would,^^  etc.,  of  which 
Shenstone  furnished  an  example  above,  and  here  are 
others  :  — 

"  For  though  one  ivould  suppose  that  if  it  be  once  sin- 
cere, had  a  true  original,  and  was  wisely  contracted,  it 
ihould,"  etc.     (Palmer,  Moml  Essays,  etc.,  page  169.) 

"  And  that,  so  far  from  withdrawing  into  warmer  climate^ 


SHALL    AND    WILL.  315 

it  would  appear  that  they  never  depart,"  etc.  (White's 
Natural  History  of  Selborne,  Letter  90,  October  10,  1781.) 
"  I  will  only  add  on  this  point  that  it  would  appear  from 
the  constant  allusions  in  our  old  ballads,"  etc.  (Warter, 
The  Seaboard  and  the  Down,  vol.  i.,  p.  115.) 

There  seems  to  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  in  this 
idiom  should — as,  "it  should  seem,"  "one  should 
suppose,"  "  as  who  should  say  "  —  has  a  preponder- 
ance of  usage  on  its  side,  and  that  such  instances 
as  those  given  above  may  be  regarded  as  examples  of 
a  deviation  from  that  idiom. 

There  is  another  discrimination  between  ivoulcl  and 
should  which  is  worthy  of  attention,  particularly  as 
it  has  been  pronounced  ujjon  by  a  recent  critic  with 
what  may  appear  to  have  been  too  little  knowledge 
and  too  much  pretension.  The  usage  referred  to  is 
where  the  verb  expressing  future  action  follows  and 
depends  upon  the  expression  of  a  wish  or  a  com- 
mand ;  as,  "  I  request  that  you  will  go  to  your  own 
home,"  or  as  in  the  following  sentence  from  Swift's 
"  Voyage  to  Lilliput :  "  — 

"  He  desired  I  would  stand  like  a  Colossus,  with  my  legs 
as  far  asunder  as  I  conveniently  could."    (Chap,  iii.) 

In  cases  like  those  above,  in  which  the  assertion  is 
direct  and  personal,  the  general  usage  of  the  best 
writers  is  that  of  will  and  would.^     But  it  is  by  no 

1  The  writer  referred  to  above  having  brought  forward  a  single  in- 
Btance  of  this  usage,  I  add  a  gleaning  from  my  memorandums,  confining 
.wyself  as  before  to  writers  of  repute  :  — 

"To  this  UI_vsses  answered  and  said  : 
'T  was  not  her  fault  we  came  not  both  together  ; 
She  bade  me  I  would  not;  but,"  etc. 

(Hobbes,  Odyssey,  Book  VII.,  1.  281.  i 

"And  I  made  bold  to  desire  ray  conductor  tiiat  he  would  be  p.eased  t# 
■KplAin."     (Swift,  Gulliver,  Laputa,  chap,  i.] 


84G  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

means  universal,  even  among  such  writers,  and  when 
the  construction  is  impersonal  should  is  used  ;  as, 
"  It  was  desired  that  we  should  come."  A  sentence 
remarked  upon  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses  "  (page 
269)  — 

"  .  .  .  .  and  it  was  requested  that  no  persons  would  leave 
their  seats  during  dinner  "  — 

is  directly  at  variance  with  the  best  English  usage, 
as  was  therein  pointed  out.  Writing  hastily,  how- 
ever, and  with  too  little  care,  I  said  that  "we  request 
that  people  shall  do  thus  and  so,"  when  the  question 
before  me,  and  which  I  had  in  mind,  was  as  to  what 
should  follow  the  impersonal  phrase,  "  it  was  re- 
quested," or  as  to  a  somewhat  similar  construction. 
Whereupon  the  world  was  informed  that  the  phrase 
which  I  condemned  is  "perfectly  idiomatic;"  that 
my  comment  is  "  absurd,"  except  according  to  "  the 
English  of  Edinburgh,  Dublin,  and  New  York ; " 
and,  moreover,  that  "  neither  in  Old  England  nor 
in  New  is  there  a  plowboy  of  ten  yeai's  old"  who 
could  not  hei*e  set  me  right.     It  is  comforting  to  see 

"  Therefore  I  hope  the  reader  will  forgive  me  that  I  desire  he  would  go 
to  the  play  called  tlae  '  Stratagem  '  this  evening."    (Steele,  Tatler,  No.  3. 

"I  shall  begin  with  a  very  earnest  and  serious  exhortation  to  all  my 
Well-disposed  readers  that  they  would  return  to  the  food  of  their  fore- 
lathers."     (Addison,  Tatler,  No.  148.) 

"  Sir  Robert  has  written  to  Mr.  Walpole  to  desire  he  would  go  to  Italy." 
(Gray,  Letters,  Let.  ix.) 

"  I  desire  you  would  believe  that  I  absolutely  assent  to  your  critique.' 
(Shenstone,  Letters,  No.  3.) 

"  Meanwhile  it  is  our  wish  that  our  country  loould  adopt  the  healthful 
pious,  and  economical  practice  of  what  Sir  Thomas  Browne  calls  'thefierr 
«olutioa.'  "    (St.  John,  Anatomy  of  Society,  i.  243.) 

"  lie  wishes — but  he  is  very  ill,  so  ill  he  cannot  rise  from  his  bed — 
bat  I  would  go  and  visit  him."  (Landor,  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  ed.  1842 
7ol.  i.,  p.  48.) 

"  ....  at  the  end  of  whicii  he  prayed  the  prince  that  he  would  inter 
nde  in  h^«  favor  with  the  king."  (Helps,  Friends  in  Council,  Slavery,  4 


SHALL    AND    WILL.  347 

Giant  Despair  stumble  headlong  when  he  pursues  the 
victims  whose  bones  he  means  to  bieak  and  to  pick. 
This  writer,  with  all  his  pai*aded  reading,  was  plainly 
ignorant  of  the  usage  of  which  here  are  a  few  exam- 
ples :  — 

"  We  desired  it  should  be  opened."  (Swift,  Voyage  to 
Lilliput,  chap,  ii.) 

"  And  the  Gray  made  me  signs  [that  is,  desired']  that  I 
thotdd  walk  before  him."     (Swift,  Houyhuhnms,  chap,  i.) 

"  I  expect  you  should  send  me  a  congratulatory  letter, 
or,  if  you  please,  an  epithalamium."  (Addison,  Spectator, 
No.  89.) 

"Led  in  his  hand  the  pimp  had  brought  me 
Three  bouncing  wenches,  and  besought  me 
I  should  decide  the  strife,  and  stop  all 
Their  mouths  that  watered  for  an  apple." 

(Ratcliffe,  Wits  Paraphrased,  ed.  1680,  p.  69.) 

"  Mr.  Mauleverer,  who  has  studied  astronomy  very  care- 
fully, expressed  «  wish  that  in  the  evening  we  should  come 
out  upon  the  lake,"  etc.     (Helps,  Realmah,  chap,  viii.) 

"  We  wish  that  our  good  host  and  hostess  should  take  a 
little  conjugal  walk,  arm  in  arm."     (The  same,  cha]).  — .) 

"  They  bm'st  in  upon  the  banquet  with  loud  demands  that 
Otho  should  show  himself."  (History  of  Tacitus,  translated 
by  A.  J.  Church,  of  Oxford,  and  W.  J.  Brodrilb,  of  Cam- 
bridge.) 

"  Receiving  a  reply  in  the  negative,  she  desired  that  she 
should  be  sent  to  her  as  soon  as  she  came  in."  (Mrs.  Alex- 
ander, The  Wooing  O't,  chap,  xxxiii.) 

With  this  introduction  to  a  few  "  English  plow- 
Doys  of  ten  years  old,"  I  bid  my  giant  farewell.  To 
my  readers  I  shall  venture  to  say  that  if  they  express 
Loping  and  wishing  and  the  like  with  will  and  would, 
and  command,  demand,  and  mandatory  desire  with 
i.hall  and  should,  —  for  example,  "I  hoj)e  that  Mrs. 
Unwin  will  invite  them  to  tea,"  and  "  I  wish  that 


348  EVERY- -DAY  ENGLISH. 

Mrs.  Unwin  ivould  invite  them  to  tea  ;  "  but,  "  He 
commands  that  Mrs.  Unwin  shall  invite  them  to 
tea,"  and  "  He  desired  that  Mrs.  Unwin  should  in- 
vite them  to  tea ; "  and  impersonally,  "  It  is  wished 
that  no  person  shall  leave  his  seat,"  and  "  It  was  re- 
quested that  no  persons  should  leave  their  seats,"  — 
they  will  not  be  far  from  right. 

It  has  been  strongly  insisted  upon,  by  men  whose 
learning  and  ability  command  the  most  respectful 
consideration  of  their  opinions,  that  the  established 
usage  as  to  shall  and  will  (if  indeed  it  may  be  re- 
garded as  established)  did  not  prevail  until  after  the 
Elizabethan  period  ;  and  the  plays  of  Shakespeare 
and  of  contemporary  playwrights,  and  even  the  au- 
thorized translation  of  the  Bible,  are  appealed  to  in 
support  of  this  opinion.  Lowth,  in  his  grammar 
(1763),  was,  I  believe,  the  first  to  set  forth  this  opin- 
ion, which  has  been  since  accepted  and  repeated,  par- 
ticularly by  the  editors  of  Shakespeare,  to  account 
for  the  irregularities  in  this  respect  which  appear  in 
the  text  of  his  plays. 

In  a  deference  to  such  judgments  too  unquestion- 
ing, but  perhaps  becoming,  I  adopted  in  my  edition 
of  Shakespeare's  works  the  common  opinion  on  this 
point,  —  an  opinion  which  subsequent  examination 
of  the  subject  has  led  me  to  believe  is  entirely  erro- 
neous. It  seems  to  me  clear  now  that  the  shall-and- 
will  idiom  was  well  rooted  many  generations  before 
Shakespeare  wrote,  and  that  he  himself  fully  recog- 
lized  it.  In  not  a  few  passages  in  his  plays,  as  in 
jhose  of  his  contemporaries,  it  is  violated  ;  but  this 
)s  entirely  owing  to  the  heedlessness  as  to  "gram- 
mar," and  even  as  to  correctness  of  style,  with  which 
those  plays  were  written,  and  the  carelessness  with 


SHALL   AND   WILL.  349 

which  they  were  printed,  —  a  double  cause  of  con- 
fusion of  all  kinds  as  to  their  language,  which,  the 
longer  I  consider  it,  the  more  does  it  seem  to  me  im- 
possible to  be  overrated. 

Tliis  position  with  regard  to  Shakespeare  may  fort- 
unately be  proved  to  reasonable  certainty.  For  in 
his  poems,  which  he  wrote  with  care  and  had  printed 
with  care,  resting  upon  them  alone  his  literary  repu- 
tation, but  which,  had  they  not  been  buoyed  up  by  his 
hastily  written  and  utterly  neglected  plays,  produced 
as  mere  journey-work  for  daily  bread,  would  have 
Bunk  into  the  oblivion  of  bibliomaniacal  collections, 
. —  in  those  poems  and  in  the  sonnets,  which  he  also 
wrote  as  literature  and  circulated  among  his  private 
friends,  there  is  not  a  single  violation  of  the  estab- 
lished usage  as  to  this  idiom ;  not  one ;  although  the 
four  words  occur  in  those  writings  at  least  four  hun- 
dred and  seventy  times.^  It  seems  to  me  that  this 
fact  as  to  the  poems  which  Shakespeare  wrote  with 
care  is  decisive  as  far  as  he  is  concerned.  But  we 
ai'e  not  left  to  such  inference.  Two  younger  con- 
temporaries of  Shakespeare,  both  famous  men,  have 
left  droll  but  unmistakable  evidence  upon  this  point. 
George  Wither  closes  his  spirited  lyric  poem,  begin- 
ning, — 

«'  Shall  I,  wasting  in  despair, 
Die  because  a  woman  's  fair  ?  " 

with  a  stanza  in  which  is  the  following  couplet :  — 

"If  she  love  me,  then  believe 
I  will  die  ere  she  shall  grieve,"  — 

a  couplet  much  in  favor  with  all  women.     Now  Ben 

'  To  this  conclusion  my  own  examination  of  the  poems  and  sonnets 
had  brought  me  some  years  ago;  and  I  am  now  strengthened  and  built  up 
»^  it  by  the  publication  of  Mrs.  Horace  Howard  Furness's  Concordane* 
to  Shakespeare's  Poems.      Mrs.  Furness  gives  every  word  in  the  poems. 


350  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Jonson  wrote  a  burlesque  parody  of  this  poem  ;  and 
the  couplet  corresponding  to  the  one  above  is  this:  — 

"  If  slie  hate  me,  then  believe 
She  shall  die  ere  I  will  grieve." 

The  distinction  between  shall  and  will  could  not 
have  a  more  marked  recognition.  And  beginning 
with  the  two  other  more  celebrated  dramatists  of 
the  Elizabethan  era,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and 
going  backward,  I  shall  quote  a  series  of  passages, 
each  characteristic  of  its  author's  use  of  this  idiom, 
which  will,  I  think,  make  it  clear  that  shall  and  will 
came  into  the  language,  distinguished  from  each  other, 
at  the  earliest  period  of  which  we  have  any  record, 
and  that  they  have  been  used  for  centuries  with  nearly, 
if  not  exactly,  the  same  force  in  combination  with 
other  verbs  which  they  now  have,  although  they  had 
also,  when  not  so  combined,  their  primitive  meaning.^ 

Git.  Come,  Nell,  shall  we  go  ?  the  play 's  done. 

Wife.  Nay,  by  my  faith,  George,  I  have  more  manners 
than  so  ;  / '//  speak  to  these  gentlemen  first.  I  thank  you 
all,  gentlemen,  for  your  patience  and  countenance  to  Ralph, 
a  poor  fatherless  child  !  and  if  I  might  see  you  at  my 
house  it  should  go  hard  but  I  would  have  a  pottle  of  wine 
and  a  pipe  of  tobacco  for  you  ;  for  truly  I  hope  you  do 
Uke  the  youth  ;  but  I  woidd  be  glad  to  know  the  truth  :  I 
refer  it  to  your  own  discretions,  whether  you  will  applaud 
him  or  no  ;  for  I  will  wink,  and,  whilst,  you  shall  do  what 
you  will.  —  I  thank  you  with  all  my  heart.  God  give  you 
good  night !  —  Come,  George.  (Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
EpUogue  to  Knight  of  Burning  Pestle.) 

Do  you  think  ■v'^e  shall  do  well  ? 
Hon.    Why,  what  should  ail  us  ? 
([•"letcher,  The  Loyal  Subject,  Act  III.,  Scene  6.) 

1  [  will  add  that  a  careful  examination  of  all  the  numerous  letters  by 
various  writers  in  the  Memoirs  of  Sir  Christoj)her  Nation,  Queen  Eliza- 
beUi's  dancing  Lord  Chancellor,  has  put  me  in  [lossessiou  of  a  mass  of  evi 
dence  which  coiifirni>  this  conclusion. 


SHALL   AND   WILL.  351 

"  Where  I  would  say,  I  will  punish  thee,  that  all  the 
w^orld  shall  take  an  example  of  thee,  there  the  Jew  ivould 
say,  I  will  circumcise  thee,"  etc.  (Tyndale,  Prologues,  etc., 
1530,  ed.  1828,  p.  40.) 

"  For  hee  assureth  you  that  all  shcdl  be  well.  T  assure 
him,  quod  the  Archebishoppe,  be  it  as  well  as  it  will,  it  will 
never  be  so  well  as  we  have  seene  it."  (Sir  Thomas  IMore, 
Richard  III.,  ed.  Singer,  p.  29.) 

"  Then  shall  we  by  myne  advice  and  the  kynges  author- 
itye  fetclie  hym  out  of  the  prisone."     (The  same,  page  38.) 

"•  .  .  .  so  farre  out  of  ioynt  that  it  shold  never  be  brought 
in  frame  agayne.  Whiche  stryfe  if  it  shoulde  happe  as  it  were 
iykelye  to  come  to  a  fickle  ....  yet  shoulde  the  authoritie 
be  on  that  side,"  etc.     (The  same,  page  33.) 

"  For  thouz  men  schulden  be  iugis,  zit  so  must  thei  be  bi 
uce  of  the  said  resoun  and  doom  of  resoun  and  if  this  be 
trewe,  who  schulde  thaune  better,  or  so  weel,  use,  demene 
and  execute  this  resoun  and  the  said  doom,  as  schulde  the 
men  which  han  spende  so  miche  labour,"  etc.  (Pecock, 
Repressor,  a.  d.  1450,  vol.  i.,  p.  86,  apud  Olyphant.) 

"  Now  wolde  sorn  men  wayten,  as  I  gesse, 
That  I  schulde  tellen  al  the  purveyance." 

(Chaucer,  Man  of  Lawes  Tale,  L  148.) 
"  And  tome  I  wol  ayein  to  mj-  matiere." 

(The  same,  1.  224.) 
"  The  lyf  schulde  rather  out  of  my  body  sterte 
Or  Makametes  law  go  out  of  myn  herte 
What  schal  us  tyden  of  this  newe  lawe 
But  thraldom  ?  "  etc 

(The  same,  1.  237.) 
"But  lordes,  wol  ye  maken  assuraunce 
As  I  schal  seyn,  assenting  to  my  lore 
And  I  schal  make  us  sauf  for  evermore  ?  " 

(The  same,  1.  243.) 
"  Or  that  the  wild  wawe  wo'  hir  dryve 
Unto  the  place  ther  as  sche  schal  arryve." 

(The  same,  1.  370.) 
*'  But  what  sche  was,  sche  wolde  no  man  seye 
for  foal  ne  fair,  though  that  she  scholde  deye." 

(The  same,  1.  427.) 


352  EVEEY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Between  Chaucer  and  Mandeville  the  Wyckliffite 
translation  of  the  Bible  is  in  place  ;  but  I  omit  the 
passages  I  had  marked  for  quotation,  because  in  no 
respect  does  the  authoritative,  declarative,  and  pro- 
phetic character  of  the  sacred  writings  more  affect 
language  than  in  regard  to  the  verbs  expressive  of 
future  tiuie.  Hence  will  and  would  are  of  compara- 
tively rare  occurrence,  even  in  our  "  authorized " 
translation.  Tyndale,  to  whom  we  owe  most  of  the 
shalls  in  that  version,  used  will  and  would  freely  in 
his  own  miscellaneous  writings.  To  go  on  backward 
with  examples  :  — 

"  But  zif  it  lyke  zou  I  schalle  shewe  how  zee  schulle 
knowe  and  preve,  to  the  ende  that  zee  schulle  not  ben 
flisceyved.     Fnst  ze  schulle  wel  knowe  that  the  naturelle 

bawme  is  fulle  deer And  undrestondethe,  that  zif  ye 

wil  putte  a  litylle  bawme  iu  the  pawme  of  zoure  bond,  etc. 
....  and  zif  it  be  naturelle  bawme,  anon  it  wole  take  and 
beclippe  the  mylk."     (Sir  John  Mandeville,  A.  d.  1356.) 

"  Forthi  flrede  delitable  drynke*  and  thow  shall  do  bettere." 
"  Tliat  is  the  wrecclied  worlde*  looldihe:  bitraj'e." 
"And  for  thou  sholdest  ben  ywar*  I  wisse  the  the  beste." 
"  The  clerkes  that  kenneth  this-  shulde  keiine  it  about." 
"Kynges  &  knigtes-  shulde  kepe  it  bi  resoun." 
"  But  holden  with  him  &  with  hir*  that  wolden  al  treuthe."   i 
"And  alle  that  worche  with  wrongc  wenden  hij  shulle 
After  her  deth  day  and  dwelle  with  that  shrewe. 
Ac  tho  that  worche  wel*  .... 

....  shal  wend  to  heuene." 
"No  dedlj'  synne  to  do-  dey  thog  thow  sholdest." 
"  For  the  same  mesiires  that  ge  mete"  amys  other  elles 
Ge  shullen  ben  weyen  ther-wyth"  whan  ye  wende  hennes." 

(Piers  the  Plowman,  a.  d.  13G2,  passus  \\.,pa$rim.) 
'Knelynge,  conscience-  to  the  kynge  louted, 
To  wite  what  his  wille  were*  and  what  he  do  shulde. 
*  Wcltow  wedde  this  woman,'  quod  the  kynge ;  'gif  I  wil  assente '  ?  " 

(The  same,  passus  iv.,  1. 116  ) 
"  He  sal  be  king  of  kinges  alle 
To  hend  and  fete  we  sal  him  falle 


SHALL  AND   WILL.  853 

Gais,  he  said,  and  spirs  well  gem 
And  quen  ye  funden  haf  the  bam 
Cums  agen  and  tels  me 
For  wit  wirschip  I  wil  him  se." 

(Cursor  Mundi,  A.  d.  1320,  apud  Morris,  page  72.) 
'  T  shai  the  shewe  a  pryuyt4 
A  thyng  that  thou  shalt  do  to  me; 
y  wyl  that  tho  uo  manhj't  telle; 


But  thou  do  thus,  y  wyl  be  wroth, 
And  thou  and  thyne  shal  be  me  loth. 
Zif  thou  do  hyt  y  shall  the  zj'ue,"  etc. 
(Robert  of  Brunne,  A.  D.  1303,  Handlyng  Synne,  11.  5750-5759.) 

**  Wonne  hit  and  holdeth  zut*  icholle  telle  in  wuch  manere. 

that  he  ne  ssolde  abbe  in  al  Engelond*  an  hurne  to  wite  him  ione. 

And  zif  thou  me  woH  seche  in  Engelond*  ne  be  thou  nozt  so  stume 
Siker  thou  be,  tho  ne  ssalt  me*  finde  in  none  hurne 
Thou  William  hurde  that  he  woldc  susteine  is  trecherie. 

William,  and  alle  hia 
That  into  this  bataile  mid  him  ssolde  i  wis." 

(Robert  of  Gloucester,  a.  d.  1298,  ed.  Heam,  vii.  30,  31,  61.) 

"Herknet  to  me  gode  men 
Wiues,  maydnes,  and  alle  men 
Of  a  tale  that  ich  j'ou  wile  telle 
Wo  so  wile  here,  and  therto  duelle. 


Here  y  schal  begiunen  a  rym 


Burwes,  tunes,  sibbe  and  fremde 
That  thider  sholden  comen  swithe 
Til  him  and  heren  tithandes  blithe 
That  he  hem  alle  shuhle  telle: 
Of  hem  ne  wolde  neuere  on  dwelle." 
(Havelok,  about  A.  d.  1280,  ed.  Skeat,  U.  1-4,  21,  2277-2281.) 

"  Ich  chulle  vor  the  luve  of  the  nimen  this  fiht  upon  me. 

.  .  .  Ich  wot  thauh  for  sothe  thet  ich  schal  bitweonen  ham 
undervongen  deathes  wunde,  and  ich  hit  wulle  heortelichte 
vorte  ofgon  thine  heorte."  (Ancren  Riwle,  A.  d.  1220,  ed. 
Cam.  Soc,  p.  388.) 

"  ich  the  teleen  wille  mine  wille 


ich  wUh  delen  mine  riche 
23 


154  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

and  thou  schalt  worden  wenchen 

and  wunian  in  wanside 

for  navere  ich  ne  wende 

that  thu  me  woldes  thus  scandea 

tharfore  thu  scalt  beon  daed  ic  wene: 

fliz  out  of  mei  eseh  sene 

thine  sustren  sculen  habbere  mi  kinlour." 

(Layamon's  Brut,  A.  D.  1200-1210.1) 
"  Forr  thatt  I  wollde  blitheliz 
Thatt  all  Ennglisshe  lede 
Withth  tere  shollde  lisstenn  itt 
Withth  herrte  shollde  it  trowenn, 

&  ziff  thezz  wilenn  herenn  itt, 

&  foUzhenn  itt  withth  dede 

Ice  hafe  hemm  hollpenn  unnderr  Crist 

To  winnenn  thezzre  berrhless 

&  I  shall  hafenn  forr  min  swinnc,"  etc. 

(The  Ormulum,  A.  d.  1200,  11. 131-143.) 
•'  cwseth  tht  the  hehsta 
hatan  sceolde 
satan  siththan." 

(CsBdmon,  It.  18.) 
"  nu  wille  ic  eft  tham  lize  near 
Satan  ic  tha;r  secan  wille.^' 

(The  same,  xiiL  35.) 
*'  to  hwon  sculon  wit  weorthan  nu."  2 

(The  same,  ziii.  38.]* 
'*  On  geredae  hmta 
God  almeyottig 
tha  he  walde 
on  galgu  gi  stiga  "  8 
(Stephens,  Bunic  Monuments,  i.  405,  Ruth  well  Runes,  aboat  A.  D.  680.) 

1  Layamon  is  filled  full  of  illustrations  of  the  shall-and-will  idioia 
Hure  is  haidly  a  score  of  lines  in  which  the  distinction  is  not  made. 
^  Saith  that  the  highest 
Be  called  should 
Satan  since  then. 


Now  will  I  again  the  flame  near 
Satan  I  there  will  seek. 

What  shall  now  become  of  a*  7 
•  Engirded  him 
God  Almighty 
When  he  would 
On  gallows  ascend. 


SHALL  AND   WILL.  355 

This  is  but  a  small  selection  from  the  passages 
which  I  had  chosen  as  examples.  If  they  are  char- 
acteristic, as  I  believe  they  are,  it  seems  clear  that 
the  opinion  that  the  shall-and-will  idiom  is  of  com- 
paratively late  establishment  is  not  well  founded,  but 
that  the  usage  dates  from  the  very  earliest  period  of 
the  language  ;  and  that  any  deviations  from  it  must 
be  attributed  to  the  carelessness  or  the  ignorance  of 
writers  and  scribes,  and  afterwards  of  printers.  I 
have  added  the  passages  from  Csedmon  and  the  Ruth- 
well  Runes  because,  although  shall  and  will,  particu- 
larly the  latter,  have  doubtless  in  Anglo-Saxon  less 
of  the  so-called  "  auxiliary  "  character  than  they  have 
in  modern  English,  I  venture,  although  with  some 
hesitation,  to  express  the  opinion  that  they  have  much 
more  of  it  than  seems  to  have  been  generally  sup- 
posed. 

As  to  the  original  meaning  of  these  words,  which 
is  the  germ  of  the  idiom,  that  of  will  is  plain  enough 
to  any  reader.  Shall  (Anglo-Saxon,  sceal)  had  its 
signification  of  "owe"  —  which  it  retained  even 
later,  I  think,  than  the  date  of  Chaucer's  well-known 
'*  I  shal  to  God  "  ^ —  in  this  way.  It  is  the  perfect 
tense  of  a  Gothic  verb  skulan,  to  kill,  and  thus  means 
originally,  "  I  have  killed,"  and  therefore,  according 
to  the  old  Teutonic  law,  I  owe  the  fine  for  having 
killed  a  man,  the  wer-geld  ;  hence,  I  owe  generally. 
This  is  Grimm's  etymology,  and  the  only  one  yet 
brought  forward  that  seems  to  meet  the  case. 

As  to  the  misuse  of  this  idiom,  which  some  Eng- 
lishmen are  fond  of  setting  up  as  a  shibboleth  against 

1  "  Frende,  as  I  am  trewe  knyghi, 

And  by  that  feith  I  shal  to  God  and  vow, 
I  hadde  it  nevere  halfe  so  hoote  as  now." 

(Troylus  and  Cryseyde,  Book  IIL,  stanza  229. | 


356  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Yankees  as  well  as  against  Irishmen  and  Scotsmen, 
and  wliicli  some  pedantic  Yankees,  more  English 
than  the  English  themselves,  find  in  its  purity  in  the 
mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  and  among  plowmen, 
I  proposed  to  give  in  this  chapter  a  long  series  of 
plain,  unmistakable  examples  of  its  misuse  by  Eng- 
lish writers  of  which  I  have  memorandums  scattered 
upon  the  fly-leaves  of  my  books.  But  my  readers  I 
am  sure  will  be  quite  content  that  I  should  spare  my 
labor,  and  give  only  the  following,  from  Cowley, 
Richard  Burthogge,  Samuel  Shaw  (the  Puritan  di- 
vine), Steele,  Addison,  Swift,  Samuel  Palmer,  Shen- 
stone,  Burke,  Landor,  Robert  Blake}^,  and  Sydney 
Smith,  —  hardly  either  babes  or  plow-boys  :  — 

"I  met  with  several  great  persons,  whom  I  liked  very 
well,  but  could  not  perceive  that  any  part  of  their  great- 
ness was   to  be   liked   or  desired,  no   more  than  I  would 

[should]   be  glad  or  content  to   be  in  a  storm A 

storm  would  not  agree  with   my  stomach."     (Cowley,  Es- 
says, ed.  1868,  page  122.) 

"  Such  a  Protector  we  have  had  as  we  would  [should] 
have  been  glad  to  have  changed  for  an  enemy."  (The 
"»ame,  page  136.) 

".  .  .  .  as  who  should  say,  He  would  rather  they  would 
"should,  —  in  Absolution,  Common  Prayer  Book,  "may"] 
lurn  from  their  wickedness  and  folly  and  live."  (Bur- 
thogge, Causa  Dei,  or  Apology  for  God,  1675,  page  156.) 

"  Oh,  it  is  enough  ;  we  see  that  there  are  pleasant  things 
in  that  land  ;  we  will  [s/m//]  never  come  at  it."  (Samuel 
8haw,  Voice  of  One  Crying,  etc.,  reprint,  1746,  page  118.) 

"  After  a  short  silence  he  told  me  he  did  not  know  how 
[  woxdd  [should]  take  what  he  was  going  to  say."  (Swift, 
Ilouyhnhiims,  chap,  x.) 

•'  Had  it  been  otherwise  you  may  be  sure  I  would  [should^ 
not  have  pretended  to  have  given  for  news,"  etc.  (Steele. 
Tatler,  No.  7.) 


SHALL   AND   WILL.  357 

"  But  if  vVe  look  into  the  English  comedies  above  men- 
tioned, we  would  [should]  think  they  were  formed  upon 
quite  a  contrary  maxim."     (Addison,  Spectator,  446.) 

"The  reasons  for  contentment  are  invincible  unless  we 
will  [would]  quarrel  with  the  order  of  nature,  which  has 
determined  that  some  shall  be  poor."  (Palmer,  Moral  Es- 
Bays,  chap,  cxxix.) 

"  I  should  be  heartily  glad  if  you  would  come  and  live 
with  me  for  any  space  of  time  that  you  could  find  conven- 
ient. But  I  loill  [shall]  depend  on  your  coming  over  with 
Mr.  Whistler  in  the  spring."  (Shenstone,  Letters,  No. 
39,  ed.  1769.) 

"  I  would  [should]  be  glad  if  Mr. were,  upon  your 

request,  to  give  his  opinion  of  particulars."  (The  same, 
No.  40.) 

"  If  this  passion  was  simply  painful,  we  would  [should] 
shun  with  the  greatest  care  all  persons  and  places  that 
could  excite  such  a  passion."  (Burke,  Sublime  and  Beau- 
tiful, Part  I.,  Section  14.) 

"  As  an  opiate  or  spirituous  liquors  shall  [will]  suspend 
the  operations  of  grief,  or  fear,  or  anger,  in  bpite  of  all  our 
eflEorts,"  etc.     (The  same,  iv.  4.) 

"  I  woidd  [should]  wish  to  commence  a  new  epoch  in  the 
composition  of  introductory  chapters."  (I  says,  says  I, 
Cond.  1812,  introd.  chap.) 

"  He  promises  me  it  will  [shall]  soon  be  ready  to  sail," 
ftc.     (Laudor,  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  page  251.) 

" .  .  .  .  how  awfully  would  [should]  I  pause  before  I 
fccnt  forth  the  flame  and  the  sword,"  etc.  (Sydney  Smith, 
p.  Plymly's  Letters.) 

"  I  proposed  to  Dr.  Paley  and  our  two  Italian  friends 
that  we  tvould  [should]  leave  the  Tweed."  (Blakey,  Old 
Faces  in  New  Masks,  page  311.) 

Let  us,  then,  should  we  make  a  slip,  possess  our 
aouls  in  patience,  and  not  bewail  ourselves  that  wa 
are  uttei-ly  lost  to  English  idiom.    For  he  must  be  aD 


558  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

insufficiently  informed  critic  of  English  literature  who 
does  not  know  that  even  the  most  thorough-bred 
English  writers  themselves  have  (as  I  have  somewhat 
Bhown  above)  not  always  been  able  to  use  shall  and 
will^  and  particularly  should  and  would,  without  some 
Bhilly-shallying  between  them. 


WORDS  AND  PHRASES. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

"POPULAR   PIE." 

I  USED  sometimes  to  go  for  oatmeal  and  milk  to 
one  of  those  unpretending  eating-houses  which  are 
called  dairies,  because  at  first  their  customers  were 
fed  only  on  a  diet  of  milk  and  of  bread  or  porridge. 
They  have  not  yet  been  dignified  with  the  French 
name  restaura7it,  introduced  by  those  who  would 
be  elegant,  and  who  would  avoid  both  the  simple 
"  eating-house  "  arid  the  old-fashioned  "  ordinary," 
the  latter  of  which  I  remember  having  seen  in  my 
boyhood,  in  New  York,  on  the  signs  of  the  eating- 
houses  then  in  the  wide  part  of  Fulton  Street  which 
stretches  between  Water  Street  and  the  river. 

As  I  was  one  day  sitting  in  this  dairy,  ruminating 
over  my  fodder,  perhaps  also  in  a  Jacques  mood, 
'  chewing  the  food  of  sweet  and  bitter  fancy,"  ^  1 
was  startled  by  hearing,  in  a  sharp  and  rather  nosey 
foice,  the  assertion,  in  a  discontented  and  positive 
tone,  "  I  don't  call  this  very  pop'lar  pie." 

The  extraordinary  nature  of  this  declaration  roused 
me  from  my  musing.  It  was  addressed,  as  I  found, 
to  a  pretty,  fair-haired  waitress  by  a  lad,  or,  as  he 
doubtless  regarded  himself,  young  man,  or,  better, 
young  gentleman.     A  glance  at  his  face  showed  me 

1  I  believe  that  Shakespeare  wrote  "chewing  the  cud  of  sweet  and  bit- 
ter fancy,"  and  that  the  presence  of  food  in  the  old  text  is  owing  to  the 
oronunciation  of  Mas  oo.     {See  Memorandums  of  English  Pronunciation 
•n  the  Elizabethan  Period,  vol.  xii.  of  my  edition  of  Shakespeare,  1863. 
K  change  of  the  text  is,  however,  hardly  warranted. 


362  E VERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

that  he  was  perfectly  serious,  and  that  he  was  quite 
unaware  that  what  he  had  said  was  of  any  impor- 
tance, except  in  so  far  as  it  expressed  his  opinion  of 
the  compound  that  lay  before  him,  ruda  indigestaque 
moles.  I  had  expected  to  find  the  speaker  something 
of  a  wag,  and  to  see  in  a  twitch  of  the  eyelid,  a  slight 
twist  of  the  mouth,  or  at  least  in  a  determinedly  va- 
cant and  stolid  look  of  the  whole  face,  an  indication 
of  the  consciousness  of  di-y  humor.  I  saw  nothing  of 
the  kind.  He  was  a  chap  some  eighteen  or  twenty 
years  old,  who,  in  an  inked  and  draggled  linen  coat, 
with  his  hat  on  the  back  of  his  head,  a  pen  behind  his 
ear,  a  long,  heavenly  blue  satin  neck-tie,  and  a  large 
amethyst  ring  on  the  little  finger  of  his  right  hand, 
had  come  in  for  his  dinner  of  "  roas  beef  lean  an  well 
done  na  cuppa  coughy,"  to  which  he  had  added,  by 
way  of  dessert  or  banquet,  "  up  piece  up  eye."  His 
declaration  as  to  the  segment  of  sodden  dough  and 
half-stewed  "  sass  "  with  which  he  was  about  to  af- 
flict his  bowels,  that  it  was  not  popular,  had  no  ref- 
erence whatever  to  the  favor  with  which  it  was  re- 
garded by  the  public  at  large,  or  even  by  that  part 
of  the  public  which  frequented  that  particular  eating- 
bouse.  He  meant  merely  that  he  found  it  not  to  his 
liking ;  that  it  was  not  good  ;  and  therefore  he  an- 
nounced his  inability  to  pronounce  it  popular. 

It  was  the  first  time,  I  am  willing  to  believe,  that 
this  word  had  ever  been  publicly  used  in  that  sense ; 
and  yet  he  was  as  unconscious  that  he  had  perpe- 
trated a  neologism  as  an  honest  German  near  by  was 
that  he  had  illustrated  Grimm's  law  by  calling  for 
"  bork  und  peans."  To  him  popular  meant  good. 
From  the  very  beginning  of  his  knowledge  of  words 
tie  had  heard  and  seen  this  word  used  in  a  way  which, 


"POPULAR   PIE."  363 

as  he  did  not  know  its  real  meaning,  led  him  to  take 
it  in  the  sense  of  excellent.  A  good  thing  was  popu' 
lar;  a  bad  thing,  unpopular.  A  popular  measure,  a 
popular  man,  a  popular  book,  meant  to  him  a  good 
measure,  a  good  man,  a  good  book.  Of  the  connec- 
tion of  popular  and  popularity  with  populous  he  was 
probably  as  thoughtless  as  he  was  ignorant  of  their 
connection  with  populus.  His  extraordinary  perver- 
sion of  the  word  was  a  striking  illustration  of  the 
effect  produced  by  the  constant  reference  to  the  opin- 
ion of  "  the  people  "  as  a  criterion  of  merit  in  all 
things,  from  pies  to  presidents. 

This  effect  has  come  (for  although  the  use  of  the 
word  in  his  sense  has,  I  believe,  never  been  remarked, 
there  are  doubtless  hundreds  of  thousands  of  persons 
to  whom  it  has  that  meaning  or  nearly  that)  from 
an  ignorance  or  a  disregard  of  its  essential  meaning, 
and  a  fastening  of  the  attention  upon  an  idea  alto- 
gether adventitious  and  incidental.^  It  is  in  this  way 
that  words  are  distorted  from  their  true  functions, 
and  that  language  becomes  so  confused  that  people 
who  have  not  the  same  intellectual  training,  and  who 
do  not  breathe  the  same  social  atmosphere,  rarely 
talk  together  without  some  misunderstanding,  of 
more  or  less  importance. 

There  are  two  words,  for  example,  gentleman  and 
lady,  which  in  this  country  are,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  without  any  generally  accepted  meaning. 
Among  certain  people  they  have  one  meaning,  among 
certain  other  people  quite  another ;  and  so  divergent 
are  these  meanings  that,  unless  you  know  the  person 

1  Soon  after  the  publication  of  this  chapter  in  its  original  form,  I  re» 
ceived  letters  from  two  correspondents  at  the  West,  informing  me  thai 
they  had  heard  the  word  used  by  uneducated  people  there  in  the  sense  ol 
good,  excellent. 


364  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

with  whom  you  speak  so  well  that  you  can  put  your- 
Belf  in  his  place  and  assume  his  habits  of  thought, 
you  cannot  understand  exactly  what  he  means  by  the 
phrases  a  perfect  gentleman  and  a  perfect  lady.  The 
only  meaning  common  to  all  who  use  them  is  their 
distinction  of  sex :  they  distinguish  man  from  woman; 
two  creatures  that  seem  to  have  disappeared,  almost, 
from  the  western  world,  except  among  people  of  the 
highest  culture  and  simplest  manners.  Do  we  not 
see  often  the  advertisement  which  announces  that  "  a 
sales  lady  "  offers  her  services  to  any  one  who  may 
be  in  need  of  them  ?  Does  not  the  gentlemanly  con- 
ductor ask  us  to  move  up  in  the  bulging  street-car, 
and  "  let  in  this  lady,"  as  Bridget  McQuean,  smelling 
slightly  of  pipe  and  poteen,  struggles  at  the  car  door 
with  her  basket  of  clothes  ?  Far  be  it  from  me  to 
insinuate  that  Bridget  is  not  a  perfect  lady ;  for  I 
should  thereby  run  the  risk  of  having  my  head 
broken  by  Patrick,  her  husband,  whom  the  conductor 
would  also  call  a  gentleman  ;  chiefly,  however,  because 
it  is  not  my  business  here  to  draw  social  distinctions, 
but  only  verbal  ones.  There  are  some  people  whose 
ideal  of  a  perfect  gentleman  is  a  man  who  pays  his 
bills  without  question  the  first  time  they  are  pre- 
sented ;  tried  by  which  test,  I  fear  there  are  some  of 
us  who  would  fail  sadly  in  the  article  of  our  gentry. 
A  waiter's  ideal  of  a  perfect  gentleman  is  a  man  who 
orders  a  good  dinner,  and,  paying  for  it,  gives  him  all 
the  change  under  a  dollar  ;  and  I  know  a  woman  of 
V^ery  excellent  sense  and  breeding  whose  notion  of  a 
perfect  gentleman  is  a  man  that  never  speaks  to  her  in 
the  street  without  taking  his  hat  quite  off,  and  does 
•lot  sit  in  her  presence  until  she  does  him  the  honor 
•o  request  him  to  do  so.    Perliaps  the  waiter's  criterion 


"POPULAR   PIE."  365 

is  quite  as  reasonable  as  hers.  Twenty  years  ago  the 
South  honestly  believed  that  there  were  very  few  gen- 
tlemen in  the  North ;  and  perhaps  the  most  unexcep- 
tionable definition  of  a  gentleman  might  then  have 
been  given,  if  the  giver  could  have  put  his  idea  into 
words,  by  an  old  Southern  negro  house  servant,  who 
for  all  his  life  had  served  masters  hardly  better  man- 
nered than  himself. 

But  it  is  not  as  to  the  meaning  of  such  words  and 
phrases  only  that  there  is  confusion.  The  great  dif- 
ficulty in  most  discussions  in  general  society  is  the 
misapprehension  of  terms.  To  various  people  the 
same  words  have  different  shades  of  meaning,  and 
even  meanings  widely  different.  This  is  so  much  the 
case  that  intelligent  and  good-natured  argument  upon 
subjects  of  common  interest  is  often  found  impossible. 
The  disputants  exasperate  each  other  by  what  seem 
to  them  mutually  to  be  willful  perversions  of  lan- 
guage ;  the  fact  being  merely  that  words  really  have 
to  them  different  significations.  The  first  step  in  all 
discussion  should  be  the  settlement  of  the  exact 
meaning  of  terms  in  regard  to  the  matter  in  dispute ; 
and  it  will  generally  be  found  that  this  in  itself  in- 
volves no  little  discussion,  and  that  the  various  ap- 
prehension of  those  terms  makes  rational  and  satis- 
factory discussion  very  difficult.  The  higher  the 
culture  of  the  disputants,  the  less  of  this  difficulty 
will  be  found.  Discussions  among  scholars  and  scien- 
tific men  are  comparatively  easy  and  satisfactory,  be- 
cause they  have  a  common  and  a  clear  idea  of  the 
meaning  of  the  words  they  use.  But  yet  there  is 
good  ground  for  Moliere's  satire  when  he  makes  Dr. 
Pancrace  rave  when  Dr.  Marphurius  speaks  to  him  of 
*;he  form  of  a  hat,  when  he  should  say  the  figure  oj 


866  EVERY-L>AY  ENGLISH. 

a  hat.^  The  wide  diffusion  of  a  loose  or  merely  lit- 
erate acquaintance  with  the  terms  of  science,  of  phi- 
losophy, and  of  criticism  has  increased  this  difficulty 
BO  much  of  late  years  that,  as  I  have  previously  men- 
tioned, some  intelligent  men,  whose  sensitive  natures 
shrink  from  wrangling,  eschew  social  discussion  al- 
together. Thus,  the  influence  of  this  restriction  is 
added  to  many  others  which  tend  to  that  diminu- 
tion of  the  higher  style  of  conversation  which  has  for 
many  years  been  among  the  negative  forces  in  the 
deterioration  of  the  pleasures  of  society. 

It  will  be  found  that  the  words  as  to  the  meaning 
of  which  there  is  this  divergent  apprehension  are 
mostly  Latin  words,  more  or  less  Englished  in  their 
endings.  Perhaps  all  words  are  subject  in  some  de- 
gree to  this  misapprehension  and  perversion,  but  those 
jf  Romanic  or  Latin  origin  are  more  so  than  truly 
English  words,  because  of  the  imperfect  and,  so  to 
Bpeak,  stranger-like  apprehension  of  their  meaning 
by  the  mass  of  the  people. 

1  Sgnnarelle.  Et  quoi  encore  ? 

Pancrace.  Un  ipfnorant  m'a  volu  soutenir  une  proposition  erron^e,  nne 
proposition  ^pouvantable,  effroj'able,  extoable. 

S.  Puis-je  demander  ce  que  c'est  ? 

P.  Ah !  seigneur  Sganarelle,  tout  est  reverse  aujourd'hui,  et  le  monde 
est  tomb^  dans  une  corruption  g^n^rale :  une  licence  ^pouvantable  r^gne 
partout;  et  les  magistrats  qui  sont  ^tablis  pour  maintenir  I'ordre  dans  cet 
Etat  devraient  mourir  de  honte  en  souffrant  un  scandale  aussi  intolerable 
que  celui  dont  je  veux  parler. 

8.  Quoi  done  ? 

P.  N'est-ce  pas  une  chose  horrible,  une  chose  qui  cri  vengeance  au  ciel, 
que  d'endurer  qu'on  disc  publiquement  la  forme  d'un  chapeau? 

8.  Comment? 

P.  Je  soutiens  qu'il  faut  dire  la  figure  d'un  chapeau,  et  uon  pas  !a 
forme:  d'autant  qu'il  y  a  cettc  difference  entre  la  forme  et  la  figure,  quo 
la  forme  est  la  disposition  extdrieure  des  corps  qui  sont  animds,  et  la  figure 
a  disposition  ext^rieure  des  corps  qir.  sont  inanini^s:  et  puisque  le  cha- 
peau es-  un  corps  iiianim<?,  il  faut  dire  la  figure  d'un  chapeau,  et  non  pas  la 
ornip. 

(Le  Mariage  Forc^,  Scene  vi.) 


"POPULAR  PIE."  367 

Really  to  understand  and  rightlj'^  to  use  the  whole 
vocabulary  of  what  (apart  from  all  technical  words) 
has  been  called  English  for  a  very  long  time  requires 
jome  knowledge  of  the  Latin  language.  Evidence 
of  this  condition  of  things  comes  out  very  plainly 
when  persons  whose  education  has  not  included  some 
study  of  that  language,  or  constant  intercourse  with 
highly  cultivated  people  (no  small  or  inferior  part 
of  education),  undertake  to  use  the  Latin  part  of 
our  modern  so-called  English  language.  If  they  can 
do  so  without  striking  blunders,  they  very  rarely  es- 
cape without  showing  a  misapprehension  of  the  true, 
that  is  the  radical,  meaning  of  some  one  or  more  of 
the  Romanic  words  they  use.  They  stumble  into 
some  sort  of  "popular  pie,"  and  very  often  into  some- 
thing much  worse.  Wits  and  humorists  have  felt 
this,  although  they  may  not  have  had  a  clear  ap- 
prehension of  its  cause.  The  blunders  of  the  Mrs. 
Quicklys,  the  Mrs.  Malaprops,  the  Mrs.  Partingtons, 
and  their  kind  will  be  found  to  be  almost  wholly  in 
the  Latin  part  of  the  language.  In  long  English 
words  their  brains  or  tongues  are  not  entangled ; 
but  a  two-syllable  word  of  Latin  origin  trips  them 
headlong. 

A  somewhat  close  observation  has  given  me  reason 
to  believe  that  many  intelligent  people,  not  in  the 
humbler  conditions  of  life,  consciously  fail  to  under- 
Btand,  or  unsuspectingly  misunderstand,  not  a  little 
m  the  sermons  and  the  speeches  which  they  hear,  and 
,in  the  leading  articles  which  they  read.  They  say 
nothing  about  the  matter,  and  they  listen  and  read  on, 
antil  by  and  by  they  get  some  notion  of  the  meanings 
jf  the  words  which  are  at  first  mere  sounds  to  them ; 
out  it  is  generally  a  vague  and   often  a  mistakec 


368  E VERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

notion,  like  supposing  popular  to  mean  good,  because 
goodness  is  a  commonly  assumed  element  in  popu- 
larity. I  have  no  doubt  that  could  we  think  the 
thoughts  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  general 
public  —  those  who  have  received  only  a  common- 
school  education,  their  schooling  having  ended  at  the 
twelfth  or  fourteenth  year  —  we  should  find  that  in 
their  i*eading  and  hearing  they  more  or  less  mistake 
at  least  one  in  ten  of  the  Romanic  words  used  by  a 
writer  or  a  speaker.  I  am  sure  that  such  persons 
might  listen  for  an  hour  to  the  talk  of  those  of 
higher  education,  when  the  topics  led  away  from  the 
word-paths  of  simple  English,  and  not  really  under- 
stand what  they  said,  much  better  than  if  they  spoke 
French  or  Latin,  although  the  speakers  themselves 
would  not  be  at  all  conscious  of  anything  outlandish 
or  even  unusual  in  their  speech. 

Quite  another  matter  is  that  failure  both  of  appre- 
hension and  of  comprehension  which  is  a  consequence 
of  the  remoteness  of  a  subject  from  the  mind  of  the 
hearer  or  the  reader ;  in  which  case  it  is  the  thoughts 
and  the  relations  of  the  thoughts  that  are  strange  and 
out  of  reach.  This,  by  the  bye,  has  one  remarkable 
result.  I  have  read  repeatedly,  and  to  various  per- 
sons, whose  intelligence  and  information  were  much 
above  the  common,  passages  from  the  works  of  writ- 
ers on  moral  philosophy  and  mental  physiology,  which 
contained  no  unusual  words,  and  every  word  of  which, 
KS  used  ordinarily,  my  hearers  clearly  understood, 
and  have  been  frankly  told  that  they  could  not  un- 
derstand the  passages  at  all ;  that  the  words,  although 
they  had  a  familiar  sound,  conveyed  no  meaning  what, 
ever  to  them ;  and  that  I  might  as  well  have  read  ta 
them  in  a  foreign  language. 


"POPULAR   PIE."  369 

This  phenomenon  has  relations  with  a  fact  which 
has  not  been  remarked  upon,  to  my  knowledge,  but 
which  is  worthy  of  observation  :  that  not  a  little  of 
our  readiness  at  understanding  what  we  hear  depends 
upon  its  being  in  some  degree  what  we  expect  to 
hear.  When  an  answer  to  a  question  is  entirely 
from  the  purpose,  we  often  actually  fail  in  under- 
standing the  words  addressed  to  us,  or,  as  we  may 
think,  in  hearing  them. 

It  is  not,  however,  to  that  failure  to  understand 
which  is  the  consequence  of  strangeness  in  the  sub- 
ject written  or  spoken  of,  that  I  have  referred,  but  to 
that  which  is  the  consequence  of  the  mere  use  of 
words  foreign  to  the  hearer.  For  example,  I  know 
that  the  servants  that  wait  on  us  at  table  often  un- 
derstand almost  as  little  of  what  we  say  in  our  talk 
over  even  the  most  common  topics  of  the  day  as 
if  we  were  speaking  in  a  foreign  language.  I  say 
that  I  know  this  because  I  have  made  experiments 
which  enable  me  to  know  it.  And  I  have  had,  in 
an  ofi&cial  position,  occasion  to  remark,  in  intelligent 
and  capable  marine  officers  and  persons  engaged  in 
mechanical  pursuits,  as  great  an  inability  to  appre- 
hend the  meaning  of  words  and  phrases  which  are  <5f 
common  occurrence  in  literature  and  in  the  every- 
day speech  of  educated  people  as  there  is  among 
people  in  general  to  understand  the  technical  phrases 
of  seamanship  or  mechanics.  And  the  words  thus 
misapprehended,  if  not  quite  misunderstood,  are  al- 
most always  words  of  Latin  origin ;  which  shows,  as 
I  have  said,  that  for  the  clear  apprehension  and  un- 
derstanding of  the  English  language  as  it  is  now 
Bpoken  and  written,  some  acquaintance  with  the  Latin 
language  is  necessary. 

24 


370  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

This,  I  am  informed,  is  not  the  case  in  Germany 
Highly  educated  Germans,  it  need  hardly  be  said, 
use  a  vocabulary  much  more  copious  and  varied  than 
that  used  by  those  of  their  countrymen  who  are  not 
BO  educated,  —  an  unavoidable  consequence  of  the 
wider  range  and  subtler  character  of  their  thought. 
But  owing  to  the  fact  that  this  vocabulary  is  mostly 
formed  by  combinations  of  German  words,  and  not 
by  importations  from  the  Latin  and  Greek,  the  Ger- 
man of  humbler  grade,  if  he  apprehends  the  meaning 
of  what  he  hears  or  reads  at  all,  apprehends  it  cor- 
rectly. His  mind  strikes  at  once  at  the  radical, 
central,  vital  meaning  of  the  word  that  he  hears ;  he 
does  not  fumble  with  some  much  deflected  or  merely 
adventitious  or  allusive  signification.  And  thus  there 
is  in  the  German  of  every-day  life  much  less  of  that 
double  character  which  is  so  striking  a  trait  of  the 
English  language.  There  is  not  in  the  former  that 
divergence  between  the  speech  of  the  cultivated  and 
the  uncultivated  which  there  is  in  the  latter,  even  in 
these  days  of  what  is  called  popular  education.  The 
same  is  also  measurably  true  of  the  Romanic  lan- 
guages, the  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian,  which  are 
to  a  great  degree  homogeneous.  And  here  it  may 
be  remarked  that  much  of  what  seems  to  us  inflated 
in  the  daily  speech  of  the  Latin  peoples  is  not  rightly 
Bubject  to  that  reproach.  Our  homely  every-day 
Bpeech  is  English,  or  "Anglo-Saxon,"  so  called;  and 
to  speak  in  a  general  way,  we  reserve  our  words  of 
Romanic  origin  for  great  subjects  and  great  occa- 
Bions.  But  with  the  Latin  peoples  the  correspondent 
Romanic  words  form  in  a  great  measure  their  homely 
every-day  speech. 

To  return  to  our  "  popular  pie."     How  great  is 


"  POPULAR   PIE."  371 

the  apparent  change  in  the  meaning  of  popular  from 
the  time  when  there  was  no  incongruity  in  the  ques- 
tion which  Shakespeare  puts  into  Pistol's  mouth, 
"  Art  thou  base,  common,  and  popular  ?  "  ^  to  the 
present,  when  it  is  used  by  some  persons  to  express 
the  most  desired  condition  or  quality  in  a  man.  or  a 
thing !  And  yet  there  has  been  really  no  change 
whatever  in  the  meaning  of  the  word,  rightly  used. 
It   is   the   thing   which    the  word   means   that   has 

1  Pistol,  it  is  true,  is  a  fantastic  speaker,  and  asks  the  grade  or  rank  of 
the  person  whom  he  addresses;  but  there  are  instances  enough  of  the  use 
of  popular  in  a  derogatory  sense.  So  late  as  1631  Shirley  wrote,  in  the 
Prologue  to  Love  in  a  Maze,  — 

"  That  Muse  whose  song  within  another  sphere 
Hath  pleasM  some,  and  of  the  best,  whose  ear 
Is  able  to  distinguish  strains  that  are 
Clear  and  Phoebean,  from  the  popular 
And  sinful  dregs  of  the  adulterate  brain,"  etc. 
Popularity  expressed  at  first  the  disposition  of  the  person  to  whom  it  WM 
applied,  rather  than  the  disposition  of  the  people  toward  him :  — 

"We  observe  him, 
His  popularity  :  how  affable 
He  's  to  the  people;  his  hospitality 
Which  adds  unto  his  love." 
(Thomas  Hey  wood,  The  Royal  King,  1595-1600,  Act  I.,  Scene  1.) 
But  in  less  than  half  a  century  popular  was  applied  to  a  man  loved  by 
the  people  for  good  qualities.     Massinger's  Fatal  Dowry,  written  cer- 
tainly before  1632,  and  probably  before  1620,  furnishes  us  with  the  follow- 
ing example  of  its  use :  — 

"  Now  you  do  see  her  made  another  man's. 
And  such  a  man's,  so  good,  so  popular!  " 

(Act  II.,  Scene  2.) 
5ret,  as  we  have  seen,  Shirlej',  Massinger's  younger  contemporary',  uses 
it  in  a  derogatory  sense.  Clarendon,  writing  in  the  third  quarter  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  Cavalier  as  he  was,  never  uses  it  in  such  a  way,  but 
with  almost  its  proper  modern  meaning, — generally  acceptable  to  the 
people.  The  following  passage,  in  which  Clarendon  defines  his  meaning, 
is  interesting:  "He  [Hampden]  was  indeed  a  very  wise  rflan,  and  of 
great  parts,  and  possessed  with  the  most  absolute  spirit  of  popularity,  that 
is,  the  most  absolute  faculties  to  govern  the  people,  of  any  man  I  ever 
knew."  (Book  VII.,  vol.  iv.,  p.  35.,  ed.  183S  )  F.ven  now  in  the  mouths  of 
toen  of  science,  men  of  letters,  and  f  hilosophers,  popular  conveys  a  senat 
Jf  disparagement. 


872  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

changed ;    and  the   apparent   change   is   merely  the 
Bign   of  a  political   and  social  revolution.     Popular 
means  merely  that  which  belongs  to,  is  suited  to,  ot 
originates  with  the  people,  the  populace.    This  sense, 
in  its  bare  utterance,  was  at  first  derogatory.     To  be 
popular  was  to  be  base,  low,  contemptible ;  and  to 
the  word  populace   there   still   clings   a   derogatory 
sense,  notwithstanding  the  revolution  which  has  made 
popular  a  word  of  approbation.    The  apparent  change 
in  the  meaning  of  the  latter  word  has  been  brought 
about  by  the  fact  that  the  people  have  risen  morally 
and  intelleetuall}^,  and  in  consideration ;  so  that  what 
wins  general,  that  is  populai',  favor  is  now  something 
much  higher  and  better  than  it  was  three  hundred 
years  ago,  when  popular  first  came  into  use.     But 
the  word  now  means  rightly  just  what  it  did  then, — 
that  which  pertains  to,  comes  from,  or  pleases  the 
people ;    and  whether    that   is    intrinsically  good  or 
bad  depends  upon  the  moral  and  intellectual  condi- 
tion of  the  people.     For  the  expression  of  the  rela- 
tion to  the  people  of  that  to  which  it  is  applied,  it 
is  rightly  used ;  but  its  use  to  mean  absolutely  good, 
or  worthy  of  approbation,  is  a  degradation  and  con- 
fusion of  language.     A  popular  measure,  meaning  a 
wise  measure,  or  a  popular  man,  meaning  an  admi- 
rable man,  is  not  a  whit  more  defensible  than  pop- 
ular pie,  meaning  good   pie.     The  word,  indeed,  is 
never  so  used  by  good  writers  and  speakers ;  but  who 
shall  say  what  a  not  very  distant  future  may  have 
in  store  for  us  in  this  respect?     If  good  writers  and 
speakers  should  so  use  it,  we  should  have  to  submit 
to  its  use,  just  as  we  are  obliged  to  put  up  with  many 
other  wrongs.     But  they  are  not  the  less  wrong  be* 
cause  we  are  obliged  to  submit  to  them ;  and  so  the 


"  POPULAR   PIE."  373 

nse  of  popular  or  of  any  other  word  without  regard 
to  its  essential  meaning  is  a  wrong. 

There  are  other  words  the  sense  of  which  is  now 
beginning  to  be  perverted  before  our  very  eyes,  or 
rather  in  our  very  ears.  We  see  upon  the  bulletin 
boards  of  certain  newspapers,  day  after  day,  the  an- 
nouncement of  an  Extra ;  and  newsboys  run  about  in 
the  afternoons  crying  their  "  extrys."  One  day  I 
meekly  addressed  one  of  these  ragged  news  Mercurys, 
who  in  a  street  car  summoned  me  to  buy  his  extra, 
and  asked,  "  My  boy,  what  makes  you  call  that  an 
extra?  Tell  nie  what  an  extra  is."  [Promptly.] 
"  Dunno.  [Reflectively.]  Extry  's  somethin'  sella 
fuss-rate.  [Eagerly.]  Want  one?"  I  did  not  want 
one  ;  but  I  went  through  the  motions  as  if  I  did, 
and  he  left  the  car  content  with  his  first  experience 
in  making  an  acquaintance  with  what  some  people 
call  philology.  His  notion  of  an  extra  was,  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  not  very  different  from  that  of 
many  newspaper  publishers,  who  announce  any  num- 
ber which  contains  a  somewhat  unusual  supply  of 
"  sensational "  or  "  emotional  "  matter  as  an  extra. 

An  extra  is  "  something  beyond  "  (the  ordinary, 
understood)  ;  and  an  extra  number  of  a  newspaper 
is  one  beyond  the  ordinary  and  regular  publication. 
The  war  caused  such  to  be  issued  from  many  offices 
two  or  three  times  a  week,  and  even  at  some  crises  as 
many  times  a  day.  They  were  sold  by  the  hundreds 
of  thousands.  This  continued  through  four  years, 
with  great  profit  to  the  publishers  of  newspapers,  who 
began  to  regard  an  extra  merely  as  something  that 
'  sold  first-rate  ;  "  and  when  the  war  ended  they,  un- 
willing to  forego  their  profits,  and  perhaps  unable  to 
drop   at   once   their  habits,  announced  any  regulai 


374  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

number  of  their  papers  containing  matter  supposed  to 
be  of  unusual  interest  as  an  extra.  This  is  another 
example  of  those  perverted  uses  of  language  which 
often  become  established  in  usage,  but  which  usage 
cannot  make  right.  So  long  as  extra,  is  used  in  re- 
gard to  a  newspaper  or  in  regard  to  anything  else  to 
mean  beyond  the  ordinary,  it  is  rightfully  used ;  but 
when  its  contents  or  its  quickness  of  sale  is  meant, 
the  use  is  incorrect.  A  number  may  indeed  be  said 
to  be  extra  (ordinarily)  interesting,  or  it  may  sell 
extra  (ordinarily)  well ;  but  it  is  not  an  extra  because 
it  "  sells  fuss-rate." 

A  similar  perversion  of  language  is  that  of  a  man 
who  advertised  himself  somewhat  extensively  as  "  The 
Only  True  Living  Phenomenon."  All  the  world 
except  Mr.  Barnum  may  be  willing  to  pass  over  his 
arrogant  assumption  that  he  is  unique.  But  none  the 
less  we  ask  of  ourselves,  What  can  the  man  mean  ? 
The  context  enlightens  us.  According  to  him,  the 
only  true  living  phenomenon  is  a  man  who  "  per- 
forms the  stupendous  feat  of  dancing  on  the  rocky 
road  to  Dublin  for  thirty  consecutive  hours,  with 
only  ten  minutes'  rest,  and  no  sleep."  Now  although 
we  may  not  know  what  dancing  on  the  rocky  road 
to  Dublin  is,  we  may  admit  that  the  man  who  can 
do  it  for  thirty  consecutive  hours  is  a  phenomenon 
(or  extraordinary  manifestation)  of  endurance.  But 
plainly  this  is  not  what  he  means  by  phenomenon. 
To  him  the  word  has  a  specific  and  limited  meaning. 
It  means  something  of  which  there  may  be  only  one; 
which  as  to  a  phenomenon  in  any  true  sense  is  im- 
possible. With  just  as  much  meaning,  he  miglit 
have  announced  himself  as  the  only  living  parallelo 
gram. 


"  POPULAR    PIK.  375 

On  tlie  other  hand,  we  see  a  word  which  I  have 
just  used,  unique^  perverted  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion. In  advertisements  and  catalogues  we  see  books 
and  works  of  art  advertised  as  "  very  unique ;  "  which 
is  nonsense.  A  thing  is  unique  when  it  is  the  only 
one  of  its  kind,  whether  it  is  good  or  bad,  ugly  or 
beautiful.  But  some  person,  an  auctioneer  or  a  cata- 
logue maker,  having  seen  unique  applied  to  a  beau- 
tiful object,  ignorantly  assumed  that  the  word  ex- 
pressed the  beauty  of  the  object,  and  not  the  fact 
that  there  was  no  other  like  it ;  and  hence  a  misuse 
of  the  word,  which  is  already  becoming  somewhat 
commoii  in  newspapers  and  in  every-day  talk. 

Another  change  with  wdiich  we  are  threatened, 
which  perhaps  has  been  already  thoroughly  effected 
within  a  few  years  under  our  veiy  eyes,  is  a  degi"ad- 
ing  perversion  of  the  word  fast,  used  metaphorically. 
And  here,-  by  the  way,  having  fully  in  mind  how 
mucli  of  language  is  metaphor,  I  will  remark  that 
misunderstandings  and  consequent  wrongs  and  griefs 
unnumbered  and  unnumberable  are  due  to  the  meta- 
phorical use  of  words.  As  to  the  proper  metaphor- 
ical use  of  fast,  it  appears,  despite  the  writer's  pro- 
test, in  the  following  interesting  passage  from  Sir 
Henry  Holland's  "  Recollections  of  Past  Life  :  "  — 

"  I  may  mention  in  the  same  cursory  way  another  change 
manifest  to  me  during  my  London  life,  and  in  truth  hardly 
'ess  obvious  in  the  world  at  large.  This  is  (using  the  word 
;.«re  in  its  simpler  sense)  the  mcYea?,edi  fastness  of  living  in- 
cident to  all  classes  and  occupations  of  men.  Looking  espe- 
cially at  home,  we  find  that  the  augmented  speed  and  hurry 
of  locomotion  (and  I  can  affirm  that  people  walk  faster  in 
the  London  streets  than  they  did  when  I  first  knew  those 
great  thoroughfares)  is  carr'ed  into  every  other  department 


S7G  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

of  life,  — politics,  commerce,  literature,  science,  professionaJ 
and  social  existence.  The  loiterers  in  life  are  fewer,  and 
the  charm  of  a  tranquil  leisure  is  less  appreciated  and 
Bought  after."     (Page  268.) 

This  fastness  of  living,  when  it  invades  and  modi- 
fies "  social  existence,"  produces  in  the  end  fast  men 
and  fast  women  ;  of  which  variety  of  the  human  spe- 
cies a  striking  definition  was  given  some  years  ago 
by  a  well-known  "  swell  "  professional  gambler  of 
New  York,  a  man  who  might  have  stood  for  Mr.  John 
Oakhurst.  He  was  in  the  witness  box,  and  having 
spoken  in  his  evidence  of  a  certain  gentleman  as  a 
fast  man,  he  was  asked  by  the  court  what  he  meant 
by  that  phrase.  "  Well,  your  honor,"  was  the  reply, 
after  a  little  hesitation,  "  a  fast  man  is  a  man  that 
has  more  money  to  spend  than  he  has  time  to  spend 
it  in."  The  definition  will  not  bear  close  analysis; 
but  it  was  regarded  at  the  time  as  happily  shadow- 
ing out  the  life  of  the  "  fast." 

When  Mr.  Thackeray  was  last  here  his  use  of  this 
word  brought  upon  him  a  rebuff,  in  this  wise.  He 
was  introduced  to  a  lady  well  known  in  fashionable 
and  literary  society,  both  North  and  South.     He  said, 

"  Ah,  Mrs. ,  I  'm  glad  to  meet  you,"  and  after  a 

moment's  pause,  "  I  hear  you  're  quite  fast."  "  Sir," 
was  the  reply,  "you  should  never  believe  half  that 
you  hear.  I  heard  that  Mr.  Thackeray  was  a  gen- 
tleman ; "  and  she  turned  her  back.  At  the  time 
when  this  occurred  I  heard  of  it  with  some  surprise  , 
for  I  knew  that  the  lady  (who  is  no  longer  living 
was  not  only  fast,  but  rather  proud  of  her  rapidity , 
and  although  in  any  case  Mr.  Thackeray's  remarJj 
was  rather  brusque,  as  his  remarks  were  somewhat 
too  apt  to  be,  still   there   seemed  to  be  nothing  ift 


"POPULAR    PIE."  377 

it  meriting  such  treatment  in  that  particular  quarter. 
It  was  not  until  two  or  three  years  afterward  that  1 
discovered  that  the  cause  of  the  offense  was  that  the 
word  fast  had  come  to  be  used  by  a  certain  chiss  of 
women  in  a  sense  l^nown  to  the  lady,  but  not  known 
to  Mr.  Thackeray  or  to  me.  The  fact  was,  as  many 
of.  my  readers  must  now  know,  that  Anonyma  had 
sought  to  grace  her  peculiar  life  by  calling  it  fast, 
and  glorying  in  the  name  of  a  fast  woman.  Then 
all  the  poor,  low,  wretched  hirelings  of  Anonyraa's 
tribe,  thinking  thereby  to  raise  themselves  to  the 
level  of  their  purple-clad  sister,  called  themselves 
fast,  and  —  hence  those  tears. 

This  is  an  example,  passing  under  our  very  eyes, 
of  that  degradation  of  language  which  is  one  of  the 
vicissitudes  to  which  it  is  subject.  Words  almost 
always  sink  in  grade  with  the  progress  of  time  ;  they 
very  rarely  rise  ;  and  one  cause  of  this  change  in  their 
fortunes  is  the  grasping  after  the  higher  sign  by  those 
in  the  lower  condition,  who  think  thereby  to  raise 
themselves  ;  when  all  that  they  can  do  is  to  drag  down 
and  befoul  the  distinction  that  they  covet.  Perhaps 
^ast  is  not  gone  into  the  pit  beyond  hope  of  recovery. 
It  were  well  if  it  were  not ;  for  it  expresses  in  its  cor- 
rect metaphorical  use  a  certain  life  of  headlong,  care- 
less gayety ;  while  for  its  use  as  a  descriptive  term  for 
common  harlotry  there  is  no  justification  whatever. 

Even  as  I  am  writing  there  comes  before  me  another 
perversion  which  might,  it  is  not  unlikely,  be  the 
beginning  of  another  usage,  —  unjustifiable  but  abso- 
lute. The  own  correspondent  of  one  of  the  most 
carefully  edited  and  best  written  newspapers  in  the 
country  writes  of  Marshal  Bazaine,  "  The  details 
given  of  the  escape  are  a  little  romanesque,  but  I  give 


378  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

tliera  as  related  in  the  most  widely  accepted  version.* 
The  writer  meant  what  "  the  base  vulgar  do  call ' 
romantic.  Romanesque  is  a  technical  term  of  archi- 
tecture, and  is  applied  to  the  debased  Roman  style 
of  design,  which  happily  yielded  to  the  Gothic,  and 
it  has,  of  course,  no  possible  application  to  human 
acts  of  any  kind,  or  to  stories  of  adventure.  But 
there  is  just  enough  likeness  and  kindred  between 
the  two  words  to  lead  those  who  wish,  as  this  writer 
did,  to  be  very  new  and  fine  and  elegant,  into  the 
use  of  romanesque^  and  thus  to  spread  a  perversion 
which  might  easilj'^  pass  into  an  established  but  in- 
correct and  unjustifiable  usage. 

Some  of  the  advertisements  and  signs  that  meet 
the  eye  of  a  city  pedestrian  show  a  power  of  misap- 
prehending and  misconstruing  language  which  is  as- 
tonishing as  well  as  amusing.  We  have,  for  example, 
"  Colored  Intelligence  Office."  Now  even  if  it  is  not 
the  intelligence  which  is  colored,  but  the  office,  what 
IS  a  colored  office  of  any  kind  ?  True,  we  can  easily 
guess  what  is  meant;  and  so  we  can  in  the  case  of 
another  like  sign,  "  Colored  Relief."  But  what  does 
colored  relief  really  mean  ?  On  the  west  side  of  New 
York,  about  a  year  ago,  I  saw  a  flaming  sign,  "  Home 
Made  Restaurant,"  which  struck  me  as  the  most  com- 
ical arrangement  of  words  that  I  had  ever  seen  seri- 
ously put  together.  And  yet  six  months  had  hardly 
})assed  before  I  had  a  card  thrust  into  my  hand,  in 
the  street,  announcing  the  opening  of  a  "•  Home  Made 
Hotel."  We  may  be  sure  that  neither  the  restau- 
rant-keeper nor  the  hotel-keeper  had  the  least  sus- 
picion that  he  had  been  other  than  quite  correct  in 
his  use  of  language.-^ 

*  The  following  announcement,  which   appears  in    the  windows  of 


"POPULAR   PIE."  379 

It  may  be  asked,  What  need  of  taking  notice  of 
fclie  advertisements  of  mountebanks,  the  bombast  of 
newspaper  bulletins  and  of  newspaper  correspond- 
ents, the  slang  of  harlots,  and  the  blunders  of  igno- 
rant lads  in  eating-houses  and  those  of  eating-house 
keepers,  and  the  like  ?  They  are  not  literature.  In 
reply  :  First,  they  are  remarked  upon  as  living,  pres- 
ent examples  of  the  perversion  of  language  under 
our  eyes,  and  of  characteristic  misuses,  which  possi- 
bly may  pass  into  usage.  Next,  literature  is  not 
the  source  of  language,  at  least  to  any  very  great 
extent.  The  movement  is  the  other  way.  And  in 
this  country  particularly  a  misuse  repeated  day  aftei 
day  in  an  advertisement,  by  newsboys,  or  in  eating- 
houses  is  likely  to  work  itself  gradually  and  not  very 
slowly  into  usage.  Even  in  the  most  improbable  of 
these  cases,  that  of  fast^  we  have  seen  that  a  word 
perverted  to  their  use  by  the  unmentionable  outcasts 
of  society  came  soon  to  be  recognized  only  in  its 
perverted  sense  by  ladies  of  character. 

As  to  such  processes,  philology  is  sublimely  indif- 
ferent ;  except  in  so  far  as  to  observe  them,  to  record 
them,  to  trace  their  course,  and,  if  possible,  to  account 
for  them,  and  to  point  out  the  tendency  of  which  they 
\ire  the  manifestations.  As  to  any  attempt  to  check 
them  or  to  modify  them,  Pilate  could  not  have  washed 
his  hands  with  more  serene  disregard  of  consequences. 
They  are  the  phenomena  which  philology  observes, 
the  material  upon  which  it  works.  Philology  says, 
About  this  time  popular  began  to  mean  good  ;  trans- 
pire, to  take  place ;  extra,  something  that  sold  rapidly, 

furniture  shop  in  Chatham  Street,  is  a  jewd    ?f  an  example  of  the  con 
'usion  of  thought:  — 

^^  Monthly  and  Weekly  Paymentt 
"oe  longest  time  and  easiest  terms  given  by  any  other  house  in  the  city.'' 


380  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

inaugurate,  to  begin  ;  phenomenon.,  a  man  who  danced 
thirty  hours  upon  tlie  rocky  road  to  Dublin  ;  sample' 
room,  a  grog-shop ;  romanesque,  romantic  ;  predicate, 
to  found,  to  establish ;  fast,  harlot-like  ;  adopt,  to  give 
a  child  away ;  and  awfully,  very  —  and,  je  me  lave 
les  mains. 

Of  course  I  am  speaking  only  of  the  very  lowest 
function  and  the  lowest  department  of  that  great 
science  which  is  doing  so  much  to  reveal  the  prog- 
ress of  the  world,  and  which  has  bound  the  dominant 
races  of  three  great  continents  together  into  one  vast 
family.  But  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the  function 
of  philology  is  not  to  correct  or  to  attempt  to  guide, 
but  only  to  observe,  to  investigate,  to  record,  to  infer. 
So  far  is  this  true  that  it  is  insisted  in  quarters  of  the 
highest  philological  authority  that  even  in  lexicogra- 
phy and  grammar,  two  of  the  lowest  departments  of 
the  science,  and  two  which  have  to  do  with  the  present 
of  language,  and  perhaps  the  future,  as  well  as  with 
the  past,  it  is  the  function  of  the  lexicographer  and 
of  the  grammarian  only  to  record  usage,  and  not  in 
any  way  to  attempt  to  guide  it. 

Whatever  may  be  the  function  of  philologists  and 
'exicographers  as  to  the  present  and  the  future  of  lan- 
guage, there  can  be  no  doubt  about  it  as  to  the  past. 
They  must  record  faitlifully  and  exactly  the  results  of 
their  investigations.  Unless  this  is  done,  philology  is 
a  delusion  and  dictionaries  are  a  snare.  It  must  have 
been  in  ignorance  or  in  forgetfulness  of  this  obviously 
sound  rule  in  linguistics  and  lexicography  that  aii 
esteemed  Jewish  gentleman  requested  the  publishers 
of  Webster's  and  Worcester's  dictionaries  to  omit 
from  those  books  the  verb  to  jeiv  ;  and  as  surely  it 
was  in  a  deliberate  setting  aside  of  that  rule  that  the 


"POPULAR   PIE."  381 

latter  yielded  to  the  request.  Upon  this  a  contro- 
versy arose,  in  which  several  newspapers  and  persons 
were  involved ;  and  I  was  asked  by  more  than  one  of 
the  parties,  in  terms  that  I  could  not  without  dis- 
courtesy disregard,  to  give  the  point  some  considera- 
tion. 

The  request  laid  upon  me  an  unwelcome  task.  For 
among  the  most  intelligent,  the  most  polite,  the  most 
trustworthy,  and  the  most  benevolent  men  that  I 
have  ever  met,  I  reckon  no  small  proportion  of  the 
few  Hebrews  of  my  acquaintance.  And  in  particular 
I  have  had  occasion  to  remark  not  only  their  probity 
in  matters  of  money,  but  their  fairness  and  kindliness 
of  dealing.  And  yet  when  I  am  asked,  as  I  am, 
whether  the  word  jeiv  has  been  used  for  longer  than 
ten  years  as  a  verb,  in  the  sense  of  to  cheapen,  to 
cheat,  I  can  only  express  my  surprise  at  the  putting 
of  such  a  question.  I  am  unable  now  to  put  my  hand 
upon  any  passages  in  the  writings  of  English  authors 
in  which  the  word  is  so  used,  because  the  point  never 
was  suggested,  or  suggested  itself,  to  me  for  even  the 
most  casual  consideration,  and  I  cannot  spend  the 
time  that  would  be  required  in  looking  them  up. 
But  that  there  are  many  such  passages  in  authors 
who  wrote  in  the  last  century  and  in  the  present,  I 
am  very  sure  ;  and  as  to  the  usage  of  the  present 
generation  I  can  bear  witness  myself  to  having  heard 
!'his  verb  from  time  to  time  in  my  boyhood.  The 
sense  in  which  it  was  used  was  not  exactly  either  to 
cheapen  or  to  cheat,  but  one  between  the  two,  a  sense 
for  which  there  is  no  other  verb.  I  remember  its 
use  in  various  connections,  as  "  He  jewed  me  down," 
"  He  jewed  it  out  of  me,"  and  so  forth. 

Is  it  at  all  strange  that  a  people  like  the  blunt 


382  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Anglo-Saxons,  who  for  centuries  have  prayed,  and  to 
this  day  pray,  for  "  Jews,  Turks,  heretics,  and  infi- 
dels "  (I  don't  know  whether  the  Roman  Cathulics 
are  in  like  manner  considerate),  and  who  read  in  the 
very  Pentateuch  that  the  Jews  spoiled  the  Egyptians, 
and  who  have  been  so  long  at  the  mercy  of  the  op- 
pressed Hebrew  in  money  matters,  great  and  small, 
should  have  made  such  a  verb  as  to  jew  ?  The  ques- 
tion is  not  whether  it  was  just,  but  whether,  the 
moral  forces  at  work  and  the  relative  positions  of 
the  two  peoples  being  what  they  were,  the  blunter 
and  coarser  and  more  tyrannical  could  have  avoided 
making  this  verb,  and  whether,  they  having  made 
and  used  it,  philologists  and  lexicographers  can  hon- 
estly shut  their  eyes  to  its  existence.  The  question 
is  answered  in  the  asking.  And  I  think  that  the 
Hebrew  gentlemen  on  one  side  of  this  discussion  have 
taken  the  matter  much  too  seriously  to  heart.  The 
word,  if  not  quite  out  of  use,  is  rapidly  becoming  so ; 
and  there  is  no  power  vrhich  will  so  soon  drive  it 
into  oblivion  as  the  character  and  the  conduct  of  the 
Hebrews  themselves,  which  are  likely  to  be  far  more 
effective  in  that  way  than  the  strongest  protest  or  the 
most  rigid  expurgation. 

As  to  the  mere  fact  of  its  presence  in  standard 
dictionaries  of  the  English  language,  it  merely  takes 
its  place  there  with  other  terms  which  are  the  word- 
marks  of  history,  —  foot-prints  of  hatred,  of  prejudice, 
of  wrong,  of  error,  or  of  mere  circumstance  upon  the 
yielding  surface  of  language.  Such,  for  instance,  ia 
ihouse,  a  word  more  nearly  synonymous  with  that  in 
tuestion  than  any  other  in  the  language.  It  is  orig- 
aially  a  Turkish  word  meaning  an  envoy.  It  has  its 
English  meaning  from  the  misconduct  of  a  Turkish 


"POPULAR   PIE."  382 

envoy,  or  chiaus,  sent  by  the  Grand  Sultan  to  London 
in  1603,  since  which  time  to  chouse  (or  to  Turkish- 
envoy)  a  man  out  of  anything  has  meant  to  cheat 
him  out  of  it.  But  would  it  be  permissible  that,  be- 
cause of  a  protest  of  a  college  of  Ottoman  diplomatists 
against  the  presence  of  this  verb  in  an  English  dic- 
tionary, an  English  lexicographer  should  suppress  it? 
Again  I  think  the  question  is  answered  in  the  ask- 
ing. Of  similar  origin  are  the  words  Jesuitical,  which 
has  no  equivalent,  as  it  means  something  other  than 
crafty,  intriguing ;  hector,  to  irritate  by  bragging 
and  threatening  ;  herod,  as  a  verb  in  the  sense  of 
raving  furiously  ;  caitiff,  meaning  originally  only  a 
captive  ;  and  miscreant,  which,  meaning  merely  mis- 
believer, has  come  to  the  vilest  signification,  showing 
and  recording  in  language  the  former  virulence  of 
religious  hatred.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  there 
is  no  justification  for  the  omission  of  the  word  in 
question  from  any  English  dictionary  pretending  to 
thoroughness  and  trustworthmess,  and  as  surely  also 
that  there  is  none  for  the  use  of  the  word  by  the 
present  generation. 

Upon  one  other  kindred  point  I  will  repeat  here  a 
remark  made  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses,"  where  this 
subject  was  considered.  There  is  a  sensitiveness  as 
to  the  use  of  the  word  Jew  in  a  descriptive  sense, 
iv^hich  seems  to  me  unreasonable.  It  is  asked,  Who 
ever  thinks  of  mentioning  that  a  culprit  is  a  Roman 
Catholic,  a  Presbyterian,  or  a  Methodist  ?  Why,  then, 
say  that  he  is  a  Jew  ?  Answer :  Because  when  the 
word  is  thus  used  it  merely  defines  the  nationality  or 
race  of  the  person  to  whom  it  is  applied.  We  fre- 
quently see  it  mentioned  that  a  prisoner  is  a  French- 
man, an  Irishman,  or  a  German.     Just  so,  and  only 


384  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

BO,  it  is  said  that  he  is  a  Jew.  No  reference  what- 
ever is  made  to  his  religion  ;  no  thought  is  taken  of  it. 
His  race  merely  is  indicated.  For  the  Jews  are  still 
a  peculiar  people,  who,  in  the  words  of  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  their  family,  but  not  of  their 
faith,  "  have  outlived  the  Pharaohs."  Hebrew  would 
ba  the  better  word ;  for  that,  I  belieye,  according  to 
their  usage,  carries  with  it  no  implication  of  religious 
belief.  But  the  Hebrews  have  been  so  faithful  and 
have  so  clung  together  that  to  speak  of  them  as  men 
is  to  speak  of  them  as  the  people  chosen  by  the  One 
God  to  proclaim  Him  to  the  world ;  and  to  touch  the 
pride  of  the  race  is  to  offend  every  member  of  it,  from 
the  highest  to  the  humblest. 

Let  them  sit  as  serene  as  Mordecai.  They  who 
have  outlived  the  Pharaohs  may  outlive  philology. 
Certainly  they  will  live  down  prejudice  and  obloquy, 
of  which  this  verb  is  evidence  reproachful  only  to  its 
present  users. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

CHANGES   IN"  LANGUAGE. 

That  words  change  their  meaning  every  intelligent 
person  who  observes  language  and  thinks  about  it  well 
knows.  The  change  is  almost  always  by  a  grada- 
tion, the  steps  of  which  are  traceable,  although  they 
cannot  always  be  clearly  defined.  Nevertheless,  some 
philologists  maintain  that  a  word  has,  and  can  have, 
at  least  at  any  one  time,  but  one  meaning.  Now,  if 
this  were  the  case,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  change 
could  take  place.  For  if  a  word  has  but  one  meaning, 
even  at  one  time,  it  must  be  used  with  that  meaning 
by  all  the  three  generations  that  are  living  in  the 
world  at  the  same  time,  each  of  which  is  advancing 
gradually  to  fill  the  place  of  the  other.  If  the  third 
generation  receives  a  word  with  a  clearly  defined 
meaning,  it  would  seem  that  when  this  third  genera- 
iion  becomes  the  second  it  must  hand  that  word  with 
the  same  meaning  to  the  new  third,  and  so  on  forever. 
But  this  is  not  the  case. 

It  is  true,  in  a  certain  sense,  that,  with  but  few  ex- 
lieptions,  words  have  but  one  meaning ;  that  is,  the 
radical  and  essential  meaning  of  the  word  exists  so  as 
to  be  perceivable,  and  so  as  to  be  a  constant  guide  to 
its  right  use.  At  the  same  time,  most  words,  if  not 
indeed  all,  are  used  with  such  a  degree  of  vagueness, 
small  though  it  be,  such  a  lack  of  perfect  consent  and 
.  dentical  apprehension  among  all  the  users,  that  pos- 
sibly no  word  has  exactly  the  same  meaning  to  any 

25 


386  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

two  persons.  Just  so  it  is  true  that  no  word  has  ex« 
actly  the  same  sound  to  any  two  persons,  or  is  pro- 
nounced by  any  two  in  exactly  the  same  way.  In- 
deed, it  may  be  said,  without  so  much  of  paradox  as 
might  be  generally  supposed,  that  a  word  exists  only 
for  one  moment  of  time,  —  that  at  which  it  is  spoken  ; 
and  that  if  it  is  then  immediately  repeated  by  the 
person  to  whom  it  is  addi'essed,  it  is  in  some  respect, 
either  of  sound  or  of  meaning,  not  quite  the  same 
word  which  had  just  before  been  spoken. 

This,  indeed,  is  not  what  might  be  called  a  prac- 
tical view  of  language.  In  practice  we  must  assume, 
and  we  do  assume,  that  a  word  used  at  a  given  time 
—  the  present  —  is  in  all  respects  absolutely  the  same 
to  all  its  users.  That  it  is  not  so  is  certainly  true ; 
but  this  is  merely  a  fact  interesting  and  instructive 
in  the  history  of  language.  A  striking  illustration  of 
the  changes  of  meaning  through  which  a  word  may 
pass  is  a  word  which  I  used  a  few  lines  above,  — 
person.  To  all  who  read  this  book  person  means  an 
individual  of  the  human  species  ;  but  it  has  also  an- 
other meaning,  connected  with  the  former,  and  spruig- 
ing  from  it :  it  means  the  body  of  one  of  the  human 
species.  Thus,  we  say  that  a  man  has  a  very  fine 
person ;  meaning  that  his  body  is,  in  its  form  and  in 
its  expression,  satisfying  to  the  eye.  We  say  that 
a  well-bred  and  delicate  woman  is  nice  and  dainty 
about  her  person  ;  meaning  that  she  is  careful  and 
fastidious  to  preserve  her  bod}'  in  perfect  cleanliness 
and  freshness,  and  not  to  have  it  brought  into  con- 
tact with  anything  at  which  her  nice  sense  revolts. 

Now,  person  had  originally  no  such  meaning,  li 
meant  a  mask.  The  word  is  of  Latin  origin,  but  it 
is  in  existence  in  all  of  the  European  languages,  witb 


CHANGES   IN  LANGUAGE.  387 

the  same  meaning  ;  and  in  all  of  tliem,  its  use  can  be 
traced  in  an  unbroken  line  from  the  earliest  period 
at  wliicli  it  is  known. 

The  Greek  and  Roman  theatres  were  vast  unroofed 
structures,  entirely  open  to  the  air.  The  observation 
cf  any  play  of  feature  in  the  actors  of  these  theatres 
would  have  been  quite  impossible,  and  never  was  at- 
tempted. Some  distinction  between  the  personages 
of  the  drama  was,  however,  necessary,  and  this  led  to 
the  use  of  comic  and  tragic  masks.  These  two  kinds 
of  masks  were  at  last  greatly  subdivided,  and  there 
were  masks  which  belonged  to  each  well-known  per- 
sonage of  the  drama  ;  just  as  with  us  there  is  a  re- 
ceived costume  for  Sir  Peter  Teazle,  for  example,  or 
for  King  Lear,  for  Malvolio,  or  for  Touchstone. 

These  masks  performed,  however,  another  very  im- 
portant function.  The  remoteness  of  the  stage  from 
the  audience  and  the  openness  of  the  theatre  not  only 
prevented  the  audience  from  seeing  anything  except 
the  general  appearance,  attitudes,  and  movements  of 
the  actors,  but  also  interfered  much  with  their  hear- 
ing of  what  was  said  ;  for  when  Sophocles  wrote,  and 
A-ristophanes  and  Terence,  as  also  when  Shakespeare 
and  even  Sheridan  had  possession  of  the  stage,  peo- 
ple actually  went  to  the  theatre  to  listen,  —  to  hear 
something  higher,  nobler,  grander,  than  a  repetition 
of  their  own  foolish  gabble  by  other  people  in  fine 
clothes.  This  difficulty  of  hearing  was  overcome  in 
a  measure  by  a  form  given  to  the  mouth  of  the  mask, 
which  was  greatly  widened,  and  protruded  so  as  to 
increase  the  resonance  of  the  voice  and  carry  it  for- 
ward. 

Then,  as  these  masks  were  subdivided  into  classes, 
eorresponding  to  the  heavy  fathcx^'s,  the  first  young 


388  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

men,  the  leading  ladies,  the  chamber-maids,  and  so 
forth  of  the  modern  stage,  —  as  the  division  was  car- 
ried even  further  into  the  individual  distinction  of 
character, — these  personce  came  to  be  distinctive  of 
the  characters  of  the  dramas  in  which  they  were  used; 
so  that  to  enumerate  the  masks,  or  personce,  of  a 
drama  was  to  enumerate  the  characters  that  figured 
in  it.  This  usage,  pure  and  simple,  still  survives 
(though  with  some  difference  of  meaning  to  the  mod- 
ern mind)  in  the  phrase  dramatis  personce  (that  is, 
persons  of  the  drama),  which  is  generally  used  as  a 
heading  of  the  list  of  characters  m  a  play  in  all  Indo- 
European  languages  which  have  a  dramatic  litera- 
ture. 

Persona,  having  thus  come  to  mean  a  fictitious  man, 
came  at  last  to  mean  a  real  one,  reference  being  at 
first  made,  however,  to  the  character  of  the  individual, 
and  to  his  face  as  expressive  of  that  character.  At 
last,  however,  it  came  to  mean  a  man,  that  is,  a  "  hu- 
man "  (homo,  not  vir')  ;  as,  for  example,  we  say,  "  If  a 
person  were  to  do  thus  and  so,"  meaning  if  a  man 
or  a  woman  were  to  do  thus  and  so.  (And,  by  the 
way,  person  is  here  just  as  much  a  pronoun,  because 
it  stands  for  a  man  or  a  woman,  as  lihn  is  in  the 
sentence,  "  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,"  because 
him  there  stands  for  "any  man.")  Person  having 
thus  come  to  mean  the  individual  man  or  woman,  it 
was  at  last  applied  to  the  body  of  a  man  or  woman ; 
and  thus  the  word,  the  identical  word  (with  the 
mere  dropping  of  a  final  letter),  which  at  first  meant 
Bomething  under  and  through  which  an  actor  spoke, 
came  at  last  to  mean  the  fleshly  body  of  a  human  — 
jperson. 

This  is  an  extreme  example  of  what  may  be  called 


CHANGES   IN   LANGUAGE.  389 

A  legitimate  or  normal  change  in  the  meaning  of 
a  word;  that  is,  the  change  has  been,  so  to  speak, 
logical.  Each  shade  of  meaning  that  the  word  has 
had  has  grown  naturally  and  reasonably  out  of  a  pre- 
ceding meaning.  To  changes  in  language  of  this  kind 
there  can  be  no  reasonable  objection,  so  long  as  they 
are  so  gradual  as  not  to  be  confusing.  Indeed,  it  is 
in  vain  to  strive  against  any  change,  normal  or  abnor- 
mal, which  is  an  accomplished  fact.  In  language  even 
more  than  in  anything  else  that  which  is  must  be  ac- 
cepted. Reason  may  protest,  good  taste  may  revolt; 
but  if  a  word  has  come  to  be  generally  used  with  a 
certain  meaning,  that  is  practically  its  meaning  in  the 
community  in  which  it  is  so  used  ;  and  though  the 
usage  may  be  abnormal,  absurd,  and  even  disgusting, 
there  is  no  help  for  it.  The  only  time  for  protest 
with  any  hope  of  success  is  when  the  tendency  to  a 
vicious  change  first  manifests  itself. 

Now,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  a  great  number  of 
the  changes  in  the  meaning  of  words  which  are  not  of 
the  character  which  has  just  been  illustrated  in  the 
history  of  person^  and  all  of  those  which  are  really 
objectionable  on  the  ground  of  reason  or  of  good  taste, 
are  the  consequences  of  the  use  of  words  by  persons 
who  do  not  understand  their  meaning.  And  how 
many  persons  there  are  who  daily  use  words  in  a 
strikingly  elegant  and  somewhat  overpowering  man- 
ner, without  understanding  them,  I  shall  not  here  un- 
dertake to  say.  Some  words,  indeed,  are  of  such  a 
character  that  most  persons,  even  the  intelligent  and 
the  educated,  do  not  apprehend  their  real  meaning. 
K  word  which  I  have  used  above,  and  necessai"ily 
used,  in  the  discussion  of  the  word  person^  that  is, 
individual^  is  such  a  word      Individual  is  used  geu- 


590  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

erally  and  constantly  to  mean  simply  person.  There 
are  few  nouns  in  the  language  so  nearly  synonymous 
as  individual  and  person;  and  yet  there  are  no  two 
whose  origin  and  real  significance  are  more  unlike. 
An  individual  is  merely  a  thing,  an  entity,  which 
cannot  be  divided,  a  unit ;  and  a  man  is  called  an 
individual  merely  because  he  is  a  single,  indivisible, 
self-contained  creature. 

The  truth  is  that  we  are  hard  pressed  in  English 
for  a  general  synonym  of  man^  meaning  one  man ; 
and  there  seems  to  be  with  many  people  a  reluctance 
to  use  the  simple  word  man,  just  as  with  many 
more  there  is  a  reluctance  to  use  as  simple  and  as 
good  a  word,  woman.  Hence  we  have  the  general 
adjective  female,  whicli  belongs  to  all  she  creat- 
ures, made  into  a  noun,  as  an  elegant  synonym  of 
woman.  I  have  even  heard  of  a  man  who  wished 
to  be  gallant,  and  to  give  a  reason  for  the  gallantry 
that  was  in  him,  assign  as  that  reason  that  "  his 
mother  was  a  female."  So,  doubtless,  she  was ;  and 
BO  was  the  dam  of  his  mastiff  dog.  Otherwise  we 
have  that  common  and  really  unmeaning  use  of  the 
word  lad^,  which  is  well  fitted  to  excite  in  some  per- 
sons a  feeling  of  nausea. 

To  avoid  the  use  of  man,  meaning  a  human  per- 
son of  either  sex,  we  say  individual,  which,  however, 
is  most  often  so  used  by  persons  whose  speech  is 
more  elaborately  elegant  than  sensible.  The  word, 
however,  is  perfectly  legitimate,  and  if  sparingly  used 
is  open  to  no  objection.  But  how  many  of  those  who 
do  thus  use  it  know  or  think  of  its  real  meaning  ? 
They  accept  it  without  question  in  the  sense  in  which 
they  are  accustomed  to  hear  it ;  and  so,  indeed,  mosi 
words  are  accepted.     Thus  it  is  that  speech  is  the 


CHANGES   IN   LANGUAGE.  391 

surest  test  of  education,  of  breeding,  of  association. 
Peter's  speech  did  not  more  surely  betray  that  he 
was  a  Galilean  than  the  speech  of  every  other  raaii 
shows  what  was  the  speech  of  those  among  whom 
he  received  his  breeding ;  and,  as  Alexander  Ellis 
says,  this  speech  once  thoroughly  acquired  is,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  ineradicable.  After  maturity, 
the  prospect  of  any  material  change  in  this  respect  is 
very  slight  indeed. 

But  as  to  our  words  and  their  changes.  Individ- 
ual  is  recondite  in  its  real  meaning,  but,  happily, 
that  meaning  is  almost  incapable  of  misapprehension 
or  perversion.  Pretentious  writers  and  speakers  may 
choke  us  —  and  themselves  —  with  it,  but  it  would 
seem  that  they  cannot  use  it  in  any  other  than  its 
proper  sense.  But  there  are  countless  numbers  of 
words  which  are  constantly  used  with  more  or  less 
perversion,  and  this  perversion  leads  to  deplorable 
confusion,  and  sometimes  to  misunderstanding  which 
\(as  serious  consequences. 

In  the  every-day  speech  of  "  America,"  two  words 
constantly  illustrate  what  has  been  said  before  as  to 
the  ignorant  use  of  language.  These  are  predicate 
and  transpire.  I  have  remarked  upon  their  misuse 
before,!  and  so  have  others  ;  but  the  misuse  is  so  fla- 
grant and  so  common,  it  is  so  ridiculous  and  really 
Bo  monstrous,  that  I  cannot  do  better  than  to  mark 
it  again  by  using  it  as  an  illustration  of  abnormal 
change  in  the  use  of  words,  a  change  of  a  kind  quite 
inlike  that  which  has  taken  place  in  person ;  a 
Jiange  which,  although  it  is  increasing,  should  be  re- 
sisted, and  may  yet  be  resisted  with  some  hope  of  pre- 
venting its  final  accomplishment.  It  was  only  the 
i  In  Words  and  thtir  Jses. 


392  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

other  day  that  I  heard  a  judge  of  one  of  our  highest 
courts  —  and  that  he  was  an  upright  judge,  an  able 
judge,  and  one  learned  in  the  law  I  know  —  say  on 
the  bench  that  a  certain  action  "  vf  a.?,  predicated  upon  " 
a  certain  statute.  He  might  as  well  have  said  that  at 
his  breakfast  he  had  predicated  his  butter  upon  his 
bread.  So  we  constantly  hear  one  man,  generally  a 
man  of  some  intelligence  and  education,  asking  another 
if  he  means  to  predicate  any  action  upon  such  or  such 
a  state  of  things.  What  he  means  to  ask  is  whether 
his  friend  means  to  found  any  action  upon  such  cir- 
cumstances, or  to  take  any  action  in  consequence  of 
them.  What  he  really  says  is  nonsense,  utter,  abso- 
lute. To  any  one  who  knows  what  predicate  means^ 
it  is  difficult  to  apprehend  the  condition  of  mind  of  a 
man  who  talks  about  predicating  an  action  upon  any- 
thing. To  predicate  means,  in  simple  words,  merely 
to  say ;  or,  to  use  larger  words,  to  utter,  to  declare. 
A  verb  and  the  words  which  accompany  and  modify 
it  are  the  predicate  of  a  sentence,  because  they  say 
something,  declare  something,  of  the  subject  and 
about  the  object.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  there  is 
not  the  remotest  connection,  metaphorical  or  other- 
wise, between  the  real  meaning  of  predicate  and  that 
which  is  so  commonly  given  to  it  in  this  country,  even 
by  judges  upon  the  bench. 

And  so  it  is  as  to  a  common  use  of  transpire. 
Every  day  we  hear  it  said,  and  see  it  printed,  that 
such  and  such  an  occurrence  transpired  yesterday ;  the 
speaker's  or  the  writer's  meaning  in  simple  English 
being  that  it  happened,  that  it  took  place,  that  the 
thing  was  done.  Now,  transpire  means  to  breathe 
through,  to  pass  through,  and,  in  its  metaphorical  use 
which  is  the  only  one  in  which  it  is  received,  it  meani 


CHANGES   IN   LANGUAGE.  •  393 

to  pass  from  secrecy  to  knowledge,  from  privacy  to 
publicity.  For  example,  "  The  decision  in  the  cabi- 
net upon  the  New  York  appointments  has  not  yet 
transpired,"  or,  "  The  decision  did  transpire  yester- 
day," —  that  is,  it  came  to  public  knowledge  yester- 
day. This  is  the  proper  use  of  the  word,  and  the 
only  one.  But  some  person,  having  heard  it  said  cor- 
rectly that  such  or  such  a  thing  transpired  yesterday, 
with  the  meaning  that  the  knowledge  of  it  became 
public,  supposed  that  it  was  a  big,  elegant  word  for 
the  simple  English  "  happened  "  or  "  took  place," 
and  thereafter  used  it  with  a  pretentious  ignorance 
which  has  infected  many  others  innocent  of  his  intel- 
lectual snobbishness.  A  like  ignorant  misapprehen- 
sion and  pretentious  misuse  has  given  us  the  deplor- 
ably ridiculous  usage  of  predicate  which  has  been 
above  set  forth.  It  is  such  perversion  of  language  as 
this  —  perversion  in  some  one  respect  or  more  —  that 
is  really  worth  the  serious  attention  of  those  who 
would  speak  and  write  good  English.  This  is  of  more 
real  importance  than  all  those  errors  in  "  grammar  " 
or  in  spelling  as  to  which  so  many  persons  seem  so- 
licitous. For  perversions  like  this  really  affect  the 
Cleaning  of  what  is  said,  which  the  few  grammatical 
errors  possible  in  the  English  language  —  for  exam- 
ple, us  for  we,  them  for  those^  done  for  do  —  in  no 
way  touch. 

I  shall  in  the  following  chapters  give  some  attention 
to  this  part  of  my  subject* 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

THE  FIEST  ENGLISH    VERBAL    CEITICISM. 

As  we  were  slow  to  write  a  grammar  of  our  own 
tongue,  even  on  false,  that  is  on  Latin,  principles,  so 
were  we  late  in  entering  upon  the  field  of  English 
verbal  criticism.  The  "  Gardens  of  Eloquence  "  and 
"  Arts  of  Rhetoric,"  and  the  like,  Avhich  appeared  in 
the  Elizabethan  period,  had  little  or  nothing  to  do 
with  the  origin,  the  meaning,  or  the  forms  of  Eng- 
lish words  ;  and  even  Puttenham's  "  Arte  of  English 
Poesie  "  touches  those  subjects  but  incidentally.  It 
was  not  until  1770  that  the  first  work  of  avowed 
English  verbal  criticism  that  is  known  to  me  ap- 
peai-ed.  It  was  entitled  "  Remarks  on  the  English 
Language,  in  the  Nature  of  Vaugelas's  Remarks  on 
tlie  French  :  Being  a  Detection  of  many  Improper 
Expressions  used  in  Conversation,  and  of  many  oth- 
ers to  be  found  in  Authors.  To  which  is  prefixed  a 
Discourse  addressed  to  His  Majesty."^  It  was  anon- 
ymous, but  its  author's  name  was  Robert  Baker.  He 
was  not  a  scholar  ;  knew  no  Greek  and  almost  no 
Latin,  but  seems  to  have  been  familiar  with  French 
Nor  was  he  an  historical  etymologist ;  for  in  his  day 
true  etymology  hardly  existed;  and  as  to  Sanskrit,  it» 
very  existence  was  then  known  to  but  a  few  Western 
scholars,  and  its  value  as  a  key  to  Indo-European  lan- 
guage structure  was  unsuspected  even  by  them.    He 

-  The  address  to  the  kinj^  appeared  only  in  the  first  edition,  it  having 
»een  omitted  from  the  second  as  too  outspoken  and  presuming. 


THE    FIRST  ENGLISH    VERBAL   CRITICISM.  395 

erred  sometimes,  —  as  indeed  who  does  not  ?  —  but 
being  a  man  of  good  sense,  of  considerable  cultivation, 
and  of  good  taste  in  literature  and  in  art,  and  having 
given  much  thought  to  his  subject,  he  produced  a  lit- 
tle book  which  was  of  real  service,  and  the  effect  of 
which  is  plainly  visible  upon  English  speech. 

To  mere  usage  and  authority  Baker  did  not  silently 
submit ;  for  what  he  deemed  errors  in  usage  were  the 
very  subjects  of  his  criticism,  without  regard  to  the 
reputation  of  the  authors  in  whose  works  he  detected 
them  ;  and  among  those  whose  incorrect  use  of  words 
or  faulty  construction  of  sentences  he  remarked  upon 
were  Locke,  Addison,  Swift,  Bolingbroke,  Warbur- 
ton,  Melmoth,  Warton,  and  Harris,  the  author  of 
"  Hermes."  But  his  criticism  was  always  respectful, 
without  asperity  or  personal  sneers  at  the  writers 
whose  errors  he  pointed  out ;  and  in  censuring  the 
usage  of  authors  then  living,  particularly  those  of  mi- 
nor fame,  he  often  considerately  avoided  mentioning 
names,  using  the  phrase  "  an  author  "  or  "a  writer," 
a  manifestation  of  decorum  and  good  nature  in  which 
he  has  not  been  imitated  by  some  of  his  successors. 
His  likening  of  his  book  to  Vaugelas's,  published  in 
1647,  does  hardly  justice  to  himself;  for,  unlike  Vau- 
gelas,  he  attempted  little  in  the  way  of  etymology  (al- 
though, with  his  assumed  prototype,  he  erred  when  he 
did  so),  and,  unlike  Vaugelas,  he  was  neither  priggish 
nor  pedantic,  nor  was  he  a  courtier,  or  a  precisian,  or  a 
lover  of  speaking  fine.  His  book  consists  of  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-seven  remarks  upon  what  were  then 
common  usages  among  the  best  speakers  and  writers, 
as  any  one  familiar  with  the  literature  of  that  time 
.veil  knows  ;  and  the  justice  of  his  strictures  and  their 
effect  are  evident  from  the  fact  that  almost  all  the 


896  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

Bolecisms  which  he  censures  were  erelong  abandoned 
by  good  writers,  and  gradually  ceased  to  be  heard 
among  educated  speakers. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  my  readers  to  know  some 
of  the  faults  in  phraseology  and  of  the  misuses  of 
words  which  were  thought  worthy  of  remark  by  the 
first  English  verbal  critic,  one  hundred  and  ten  years 
ago.  I  shall  select  not  only  those  which  have  been  al- 
together given  up.  Among  them  are:  as  follow  for  as 
follows,  which  still  has  some  support  in  respectable 
usage ;  chay  for  chaise,  the  latter  being  mistaken  for  a 
plural,  —  as  some  people  who  wish  to  be  very  correct 
speak  of  the  corp  of  an  army,  or  of  a  widow  mourn- 
ing over  the  corp  of  her  husband,  or,  as  I  was  told  by 
a  lawyer,  of  the  claw  of  a  statute,  to  avoid  the  "  bad 
grammar "  of  saying  "  a  clause ;  "  ingenuity  in  the 
double  sense  of  ability,  cleverness,  and  of  ingenuous- 
ness, is  pointed  out  as  a  blemish,  —  the  latter  sense 
it  has  lost ;  demean  for  debase  or  lessen  ;  he  is  came 
for  he  is  come  ;  set  for  sit,  and  lie  for  lay  ;  propose  for 
purpose;  whom  for  who,  as,  '•'•whom  you  would  say 
passed  their  afternoons,"  etc. ;  H  is  him,  H  is  her,  H  is 
me,  His  them,  for  His  he.  His  she.  His  I,  His  they; 
mutual  for  common,  an  error  not  infrequent  now  even 
among  educated  people;  either  and  neither  used  as 
plural,  as,  "neither  of  them  are ;""  contemptuously  for 
contemptibly,  vl\q:^\\\\-\^  "with  contempt,"  —  the  latter, 
being  then  "most  commonly  used,"  has  now  passed 
out  of  use ;  fell  for  fallen,  as,  the  horse  has  fell, 
which  is  said  to  have  been  then  used  by  "  many  writ- 
ers "  (indeed,  the  literature  of  that  time  is  full  of  a 
like  use  of  the  past  tense  of  the  verb  for  the  parti- 
ciple ;  it  was  a  usage,  but  neither  sense  nor  English)  j 
hoth,  as  in  they  both  met,  and  in  "  those  two  men  are 


THE   FIEST   ENGLISH   VERBAL   CRITICISM.  397 

both  equal  in  capacity,"  whicli  is  justly  pronounced 
nonsense  ;  agreeable^  suitable,  conformable,  for  agreea- 
hly,  suitably,  conformably,  as,  "  he  performed  agreeable 
to  his  promise,"  "  he  conducted  himself  suitable  to 
the  occasion,"  —  a  usage  common  in  that  day,  but  in- 
defensible, of  course,  and  since  then  abandoned ;  safe 
for  safely,  as,  "  I  arrived  here  safely, ""^  instead  of  safe, 
an  error  not  uncommon  now,  and  among  those  who 
are  anxious  about  their  "  grammar ;  "  dare  for  dares^ 
as,  "he  dare  not  do  it "  for  "  he  dares  not,"  etc.,  which, 
although  it  is  mentioned,  rightly,  as  the  usage  of 
"numbers  of  people  "  and  of  "  many  authors,"  Baker 
says  "  appears  to  me  to  give  a  person  an  air  of  illiter- 
acy," —  but  we  hear  of  no  offense  taken  at  this  as- 
sumption of  social  superiority ;  en  passant  for  in 
joassm^^,  justly  condemned  as  sheer  affectation ;  the 
misplacing  of  only,  either,  and  neither,  as  in  "  Theism 
can  only  be  opposed  to  polytheism  or  atheism,"  and 
"  He  was  neither  learned  in  the  languages  nor  philos- 
ophy," which  has  in  its  support  the  usage  of  centuries 
of  years  and  centuries  of  authors,  but  which  has  been 
since  seen  to  be  indefensible  according  to  the  struct- 
ure of  the  English  sentence,  and  which  has  almost 
disappeared;  the  false  construction,  '•'•  I  was  going  to 
have  done  so  and  so,"  which  has  like  "  authoritative  " 
support,  and  which  is  in  like  manner  indefensible. 

Of  the  subjects  of  Baker's  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
Beven  remarks  I  have  room  to  mention  only  these, 
which  are  not  the  most  important,  but  -which  unite 
some  interest  with  conveniency  for  citation.  To  these 
I  will  add  one  other,  his  condemnation  of  the  phrases 
different  to,  as,  "  this  is  different  to  that,"  and  differ- 
ent than,  as  in  the  sentence,  "  I  found  your  affairs  had 
been  managed  in  a  different  manner  than  what  I  had 


398  EVEBY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

advised,"  which  is  quoted  from  Mehuoth's  Cicero. 
Both  tliese  are  set  down  as  being  neither  English  nor 
sense,  which  is  true  of  them  ;  and  yet  for  both  of 
them  tliere  is  the  "authority"  of  long  and  eminent 
usage.  They  are  interesting  as  being  peculiarly  Brit- 
ish misusages ;  neither  of  them  having  ever  obtained 
a  foot-hold  in  "  America."  Indeed,  there  would  seem 
to  be  something  peculiarly  puzzling  to  our  British 
cousins  in  the  proper  use  of  different^  or  they  could 
hardly  have  fallen  into  the  double  confusion  of  such 
phrases  as  different  to  and  different  than,  even  the 
latter  of  which  is  now  heard  from  some  of  them  who 
are  not  uneducated.^  In  the  course  of  his  criticism  of 
the  former  phrase,  Baker  makes  a  remark  which 
shows  that  he  had  a  just  estimate  of  the  relative 
weight  of  usage  and  reason  in  determining  the  propri- 
eties of  language.  He  says,  "  I  know  that  custom 
often  reconciles  improprieties  of  this  sort;  yet  there 
are  some  cases  where  it  never  reconciles  them  entire- 
ly, and  this  appears  to  me  to  be  one.  I  would  there- 
fore give  my  vote  for  different  from,  and  would  ban- 
ish the  expression  of  different  to.^''  He  submits  to 
usage  if  needs  must ;  but  he  does  not  accord  with  it  if 
it  is  inconsistent  with  reason.  He  speaks  very  decid- 
edly, and  yet  expects  his  decision  to  be  received  only 
as  his  "  vote."  He  says  boldly  that  he  would  banish 
the  expression  dfferent  to  ;  and  yet,  although  that 
was  even  more  than  this  the  day  of  savage  quarrels 
about  questions  of  verbal  criticism,  we  hear  of  no 
personal  attacks  upon  him  by  the  users  of  different  to 

1  It  is  proper  that  I  should  say  that  I  did  not  meet  with  Baker's  book, 
•rhich  is  not  a  common  one,  until  some  months  after  writing  my  letter  U 
Ibe  Nation,  published  September  12,  1872,  in  which  I  expressed  the  opi» 
on  that  iry  own  criticism  of  different  to  (in  1854)  was  tho  earliest  con 
(emnation  ti  ti\at  phrase. 


THE   FIRST    ENGLISH   VERBAL   CRITICISM.  399 

because  of  an  affectation  on  his  part  of  social  superi- 
ority, and  an  implication  that  they  were  bred  among 
people  whose  English  deserved  banishment.^ 

The  reader  has  probably  seen  already  that  be- 
tween the  first  book  of  verbal  criticism  upon  the  Eng- 
lish language  and  the  last^  there  are  some  strong 
points  of  lilieness ;  and  if  any  "  eager,  listening  en- 
emy "  of  the  author  of  the  latter,  on  either  side  of 
the  ocean,  is  ready  to  find  a  likeness  between  them  in 
their  errors  and  deficiencies,  he  is  welcome  to  all  the 
comfort  he  can  derive  from  so  doing.  Baker's  book 
did  not  profess  to  be  etymological,  or,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  philological.  Indeed,  it  could  not 
have  been  philological  with  the  meaning  which  the 
word  has  now ;  for  the  philology  of  our  day,  the  only 
true  philology,  was  in  Baker's  day  unknown.  And 
yet  his  book  had  a  laudable  purpose,  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  did  good,  although  it  is  a  small  affair.  No  other 
in  its  purpose  or  its  pretensions  is  "  Words  and  their 
Uses,"  the  author  of  which  hopes  for  it  only  that  it 
may  effect  a  like  and  perhaps  a  greater  good. 

"  One  language  hath  no  law  but  use :  and  still 

Runs  blinde,  unbridled,  at  the  vulgar's  will. 

Another's  course  is  curiouslj'  inclos'd 

In  lists  of  Art;  of  choice  fit  words  compos'd. 

1  Different  to  has  continued  in  use  among  British  writers  of  education 
end  even  of  reputation.  It  is  remarked  upon  in  Words  and  their  Uses, 
Here  follow  instances  of  its  British  use  in  respectable  quarters,  a  century 
and  a  half  apart. 

"  The  bass  viol  is  an  instrument  of  quite  a  different  nature  to  the  trum- 
pet."    (Addison,  Tatler,  No.  153.) 

"  The  storms  and  the  mists  ....  are  strangely  different  to  those  safer 
and  milder  phenomena  among  which  the  English  people  have  developed 
their  prosperity,"  etc.     (Buckle,  History  of  Civilization,  vol.  iii.,  p.  36.) 

Were  it  desirable  or  tolerable  I  could  multiply  these  examples  by  the 
icore.  No  eminence  or  frequenc}'  of  usage,  however,  can  justify  the  phrase, 
while  to  and  different  retain  the  meaning  they  have  had  for  centuries. 

*  Word*  and  Their  Uses  is  referred  to. 


iOO  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

One,  in  the  feeble  birth,  becomminff  old, 
Is  cradle-toomb'd :  another  warreth  bold 
With  the  j-eer-spinners.     One,  unhappy-founded, 
Lives  in  a  narrow  valley  ever  bounded: 
Another  with  the  learned  troop  doth  presse 
From  Alexander's  Altars  even  to  Fez." 

(Sylvester's  Du  Bartaa,  page  261,  ed.  16XL) 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

COMMON    MIS  USAGES. 

The  every-day  English  of  "  American  "  life  is  so 
much  affected  by  what  the  "  average  American  "  sees 
before  his  eyes  every  day,  not  only  in  newspapers,  but 
in  chance  advertisements,  and  even  on  signs,  that  mis- 
usages  of  the  lowest  origin  rise  not  unfrequently  into 
acceptance  with  people  of  tolerably  decent  habits  of 
speech  and  conduct.  It  is  only  lately  that  I  have  dis- 
covered how  very  large  the  class  is  that  never  reads  a 
book,  hardly  even  a  novel  of  the  slightest  kind  ;  and 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  I  yet  do  not  quite  know 
how  many  people  there  are  in  New  York,  that  dress 
well,  live  comfortably,  and  have  "  mone}^  in  the  bank," 
who  are  dependent  entirely,  for  the  little  intellectual 
sustenance  which  they  assimilate,  upon  their  morning 
and  their  evening  newspaper.  I  have  myself  ob- 
served how  slang  and,  what  is  very  much  worse,  — 
for  slang  has  in  some  cases  a  peculiar  pungen  t  mean- 
ing, —  vulgar,  slovenly  words  and  phrases  creep  into 
use  among  people  who  would  be  angry  or  ashamed 
if  they  were  told  that  their  speech  was  vulgar  and 
slovenly.  I  shall  therefore  remark,  briefly  and  un- 
methodically, upon  some  examples  of  this  kind  of 
every-day  language.^ 

There  is  a  strange  way  of  making  a  verb  and  then 

1  Some  hundred  and  fifty  common  misuses  of  words  are  remarked  upon  in 
Words  and  their  Uses,  where  they  are  arranged  alphabetically  ;  but  such 
an  order  seemed  not  required  for  the  comparatively  few  instances  in  this 
supplementary  chapter. 
26 


402  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

a  participle  from  a  noun  in  ion,  of  which  the  most 
familiar  and  offensive  example  used  to  be  donate,  from 
donation ;  but  now  resurrect,  from  resurrection,  has 
followed  it  into  a  certain  vogue.  I  found  a  cabinet 
minister,  the  other  day,  telling  about  a  thing  being 
resurrected.  Why  he  was  not  satisfied  with  raised  or 
raised  up,  or  revived,  which  have  perfectly  answered 
the  purposes  of  all  good  writers  and  speakers  and  of 
the  common  people  (and  it  is  the  best  words  and 
phrases  only  that  do  both),  I  cannot  understand.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  his  example  will  not  bring  the 
word  into  yet  more  general  use.  Worse  than  resur- 
rect, however,  is  Southey's  resurrectionise,  used  per- 
haps jocosely  :  "At  least  half  these  gentlemen  are  not 
included  in  the  common  collections  of  the  poets,  and 
must  be  resurrectionised  at  Stationer's  Hall."  (Let- 
ters, vol.  i.,  p.  270.)  Nor  can  Frith's  revelate  for  re- 
veal be  regarded  with  any  favor  :  "  He  saw  it  in  faith 
....  plainly  revelated  unto  him,  albeit  he  were  dead 
many  hundred  years  before  it  was  actually  fulfilled 
and  revelated  unto  the  world."  (The  Body  of  Christ, 
1533,  ed.  1829,  voL  iv.,  p.  327.) 

Another  queer  use  of  verbs  which  is  coming  into 
vogue  is  the  perversion  of  their  meaning  from  a  proper 
object.  In  a  paragraph  before  me  I  find  mention  of 
a  man  who  "  feared  to  be  embezzled  ;  "  and  I  have 
read  a  report  in  which  it  was  said  that  a  bank  "  was 
defalcated."  This  is  almost  equal  to  the  case  of  the 
man  who  announced  that  "  last  ftight  a  great  bug- 
glery  was  committed,  and  I  am  the  gentleman  that 
was  buggled."  I  have  seen  the  word  burbled,  made 
from  burglar^/,  like  resurrect  from  resurrection^  used, 
if  not  with  perfect  seriousness,  at  least  in  such  a  way 
that  it  would  be  sure  to  mislead  un instructed  speak 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  403 

Ers.  Now,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  there  is  no  "  bad 
grammar "  in  this.  The  sentences,  "  He  was  em- 
bezzled," "The  bank  was  defalcated,"  will  "parse" 
perfectly,  and  so  will  "  He  was  burgled."  The  error 
in  the  first  case,  as  in  the  last,  is  merely  that  of  the 
ignorant  perversion  of  the  meaning  of  a  word.  A 
man's  money  may  be  embezzled,  but  he  cannot ;  and 
BO  with  a  bank  and  its  money. 

The  verb  can  is  now  too  commonly  used,  even  by 
persons  who  should  know  better,  erroneously  in  the 
sense  of  may.  A  mistress  will  say  to  her  servant, 
"  You  can  go  out,"  meaning  to  give  her  permission  to 
go  out,  the  proper  word  to  express  which  is  may. 
There  was  no  question  whether  the  servant  could  go 
out,  that  is,  had  the  ability  to  do  so.  If  the  doors 
had  been  barred,  or  the  girl  had  broken  her  leg,  then 
it  might  have  been  said  to  her,  "  You  can't  go  out ;  " 
but  permission  is  granted  by  may.  When  a  school- 
boy puts  up  his  hand  and  says,  "  Please,  can  I 
g'out?"  he  means,  and  should  say,  "May  I  go  out?" 
The  distinctions  between  may,  can,  shall,  and  will 
are  of  great  value,  and  should  be  carefully  preserved. 
When  these  verbs  are  used  in  what  the  grammarians 
call  their  auxiliary  position,  they  enable  us  to  express 
varieties  of  meaning  which  are  inexpressible  in  the 
corresponding  tenses  of  synthetic  languages.  As  to 
the  loss  that  we  should  suffer  by  the  confusion  of  the 
meanings  of  these  verbs,  that  will  be  seen  by  any  per- 
son who  reflects  a  moment  how  it  would  be  if  we 
aould  no  longer  say,  I  may  do  so  and  so  to-morrow  if 
I  can  ;  I  might  do  so  if  I  could  ;  I  would  do  so  *i  I 
should. 

Avocation  is  a  word  very  much  misused  in  the  sense 
af  work,  business,  occupation,  even  by  writers  of  in- 


404  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

telligence  and  education.  The  examples  at  my  hand 
are  very  numerous.  It  will  be  found  thus  misused 
not  only  in  the  pages  of  such  journals  as  the  Lon- 
don "  Times,"  the  "  Saturday  Review,"  "  The  [Lon- 
don] Spectator,"  and  the  "  Pall  Mall  Gazette,"  which 
represent  the  best  English  of  the  day,  but  in  the 
books  of  writers  of  high  reputation. 

The  following  instance  is  from  the  "  Pall  Mall  Ga- 
zette :  "  "  They  invited  a  number  of  barristers  of  fully- 
established  reputation  to  help  them,  they  attached 
salaries  to  the  new  chairs,  and  arranged  the  duties  of 
the  professors  so  as  to  interfere  as  little  as  possible 
*rith  their  professional  avocations."  Now  a  barrister's 
professional  duty  is  his  vocation;  matters  which  call 
him  away  from  these  duties  are  avocations.  Thus 
Falstaff  says  to  the  Prince,  when  he  gibes  him  about 
the  proposed  robbery,  "  'T  is  my  vocation,  Hal." 
Vocation  means,  simply,  calling.  One  man's  calling 
is  agriculture,  another's  trading,  another's  shoe-mak- 
ing ;  and  these  are  their  vocations.  Thus  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,  with  that  duplicate  expression  of 
the  same  thought  in  an  English  word  and  a  Latin  one 
which  was  common  of  old,  speaks  of  a  man's  vocation 
and  calling.!  How  it  was  that  avocation  came  to  be 
used  in  a  sense  directly  opposed  to  its  real  meaning  I 
cannot,  of  course,  say  positively  ;  but  I  have  no  doubt 
that  it  was  merely  through  that  pretentious  ignorance 
v»r  that  slovenliness  in  speech,  to  which  we  owe  the 
greater  number  of  the  perversions  of  language.  The 
misusage  began  a  long  while  ago.  See,  for  example, 
the  following  passage  from  a  writer  of  the  rank  of 
Defoe,  who  wrote  nearly  two  centuries  since  :  — 

1  It  is  remarkable  that  this  use  of  two  synonymous  words,  one  Latin  &i\i 
Ae  other  English,  appears  in  the  title  of  the  first  printed  Englist  book 
The  Dictes  and  Sayings  of  the  Philosophers,  printed  in  1-177. 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  405 

"  Wherefore  I  think  to  write  to  the  learned  Dr.  B.,  im- 
ploring his  most  sublime  haughtiness  that  when  his  other 
more  sublime  avocations  oi  pedantry  and  pedagogism  will 
give  him  an  interval,"  etc.  (History  of  the  Devil,  page 
463,  ed.  Bohn.) 

There  is  no  room  left  for  doubt  as  to  what  Defoe 
meant,  for  the  Dr.  B.  was  to  get  "  an  interval  "  from 
his  "  avocations."  Now,  Defoe,  by  his  misuse  of  avo- 
cation, said  exactly  what  he  did  not  mean  to  say. 
He  meant  Dr.  B.'s  vocations,  or,  better,  his  vocation. 
A  man's  vocation  is  his  calling,  his  trade,  work,  busi- 
ness, occupation.  The  occupations  of  his  leisure  hours, 
or  those  which  call  him  away  from  his  work,  are  avo- 
cations :  vocare,  to  call ;  a-^oeare,  to  call  away. 

And  yet  a  writer  so  learned  and  so  painstaking 
about  his  style  as  Buckle  continually  misuses  this 
word,  thus :  — 

"  At  all  events,  between  these  two  professions  men  were 
necessarily  divided  ;  the  only  avocations  were  war  and  theol- 
ogy."    (History  of  Civilization,  vol.  i.,  chap,  iv.) 

"  .  .  .  .  and  this  forced  interruption  encourages  among 
the  people  an  irregularity  and  instab  lity  of  purpose  which 
makes  them  choose  the  wandering  avocations  of  a  shepherd 
rather  than  the  more  fixed  pursuits  of  agriculture."  (Vol. 
li.,  chap,  viii.) 

And  here  I  will  remark  that  this  use  of  avocation 
by  Defoe,  and  since  his  time  by  hundreds  of  good 
writers,  such  as  Buckle,  so  that  nowadays  it  has  be- 
come almost  the  general  usage,  does  not  and  cannot 
make  it  right.  There  goes  something  besides  the 
mere  repetition  of  a  word  in  a  certain  sense  to  the 
making  of  normal  language.  As  vocation  means  call- 
ing, a-vocation  cannot  properly  mean  calling,  but 
oust  properly  mean  a  calling  away,  a  thousand  De 


406  EVEEY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

foes  and  Buckles  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 
The  use  of  it  in  the  former  sense  is  as  indefensible  aa 
the  use  of  demerit  for  merit  by  some  of  the  best  Eng- 
lish writers  before  1625.  And  the  word  itself  might 
well  be  dropped,  whether  used  rightly  or  wrongly,  in 
favor  of  a  plainer  and  simpler  one.  Thus,  where,  in 
"The  Cruise  of  the  Galatea"  (page  220),  it  is  said, 
"  The  laborers  are  able  in  the  hottest  weather  to 
carry  on  their  usual  avocations  without  danger,"  it 
might  much  better  have  been  written  that  they  weie 
able  to  "do  their  daily  work,"  etc. 

Couple.  This  word  is  another  example  of  a  gen- 
eral misusage  which  has  extended  through  not  less 
than  three  centuries,  and  of  which  many  instances 
may  be  found  in  the  works  of  the  best  writers.  The 
following  passage  from  the  "  Saturday  Review  "  is  an 
example  of  the  misusage  in  question  :  "In  broad 
daylight  she  met  a  couple  of  men  carrying  a  couple 
of  sacks."  (February  23,  1878.)  The  incorrectness 
of  this  use  of  the  word  is  made  very  manifest  by  the 
following  example  of  its  correct  use  in  the  very  same 
journal,  and,  in  fact,  in  the  same  article  ;  "  The  real 
master  of  the  establishment  is  the  stiff  and  exacting 
Colonel  Demarcay,  who  pensions  her  husband,  pays 
her  dressmaker's  bills,  and,  in  short,  maintains  the 
young  couple,  on  condition  of  their  absolute  subservi- 
ence." The  man  and  the  wife  are  properly  called  a 
couple,  because  they  are  joined  or  coupled  together. 
The  men  carrying  the  sack  were  not  coupled,  nor 
were  the  sacks  coupled.  There  were  two  men  carrying 
two  sacks.  It  is  not  easy  to  find  a  reason  for  thia 
general  misuse  of  a  word  of  two  syllables  for  a  wor(f 
of  one,  unless,  indeed,  we  find  it  in  a  dislike  of  plain- 
ness and  simplicity.     I  have  remarked  upon  this  mia 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  407 

asage  before,  but  it  occurred  to  me  as  another  (and 
yet  a  stronger)  example  of  general  error,  such  as  that 
last  remarked  upon.  One  illustrates  the  other.  Nor 
Bhall  I  be  deterred  from  the  indication  of  error  be- 
cause I  may  have  censured  it  at  some  time  before. 

Talk  is  now  very  generally  misused  for  speak,  and 
bv  many  persons  who  should  know  better.  Thus, 
Trollope  writes :  — 

"  The  fact  is,  George,  we  are  rather  a  divided  house  here. 
Some  of  us  talk  Italian  and  some  English.  I  am  the  only 
common  interpreter  in  the  house,  and  I  find  it  a  bore." 
(Popenjoy,  chap,  xxx.) 

"  But  they  are  quite  willing  to  think  that  I  and  my  wife 
ought  to  be  damned  because  we  talk  Italian,  and  that  my 
Bon  ought  to  be  disinherited  because  he  was  not  baptized  in 
the  English  Church."     (Popenjoy,  chap,  xxiv.) 

And  even  Thackeray  has 

"  I  talked  Latin  faster  than  my  own  beautiful  patois  of 
Alsatian  French."    (Paris  Sketch-Book,  ed.  1869,  page  126.) 

In  all  these  cases  the  proper  word  is  speak.  The 
people  spoke  Italian,  and  they  spoke  Latin.  A  man 
may  speak  Italian,  or  English,  or  any  other  language, 
very  well,  and  yet  talk  nonsense.  People  speak  to 
tach  other  in  the  street,  or  as  they  pass  each  other  in 
the  dismal  promenade  of  evening  parties ;  and  they 
Bometimes  stop  and  talk.  Speak  corresponds  to  the 
French  parler  ;  talk,  to  causer.  A  child  may  be  able 
'■.o  speak,  that  is,  say  mamma  and  papa,  but  not  to 
talk,  that  is,  to  put  words  together  intelligently. 
Tlie  two  words  may  seem  to  overlap  each  other,  even 
m  correct  usage ;  but  it  will  be  found,  I  believe, 
Miat  they  do  not.  At  any  rate,  the  misusage  in  ques- 
tion is  flagrant. 


408  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

Fire  is  very  generally  misused  in  a  way  of  which 
the  following  instance  is  an  example  :  — 

"  Then  came  the  aboriginal  games,  in  which  Dick-a-Dick 
appeared  in  his  clever  trick  of  dodging  a  cricket-ball.  .  .  . 
An   incessant  fire  at   him  was   kept  up  at  a  distance  of 
only  twenty  yards,  but  he  fended  them  all  off  most  adroitly'' 
(Cruise  of  the  Galatea,  page  374.) 

And  we  hear  and  see  continually  such  phrases  as, 
"  He  fired  a  stone,"  and  I  remember  even,  "  He  fired 
a  glass  of  water  in  his  face."  Indeed,  fire  has  come 
to  be  used  by  the  majority  of  people,  in  a  loose,  slov- 
enly way,  for  both  throw  and  shoot.  Its  misuse  came 
about  at  first  by  a  use  of  it  as  a  synonym  of  shoot. 
When  hand  fire-arms  came  into  use,  and  very  slowly 
superseded  the  bow,  the  musketeer  carried  a  lighted 
match  (by  which  the  poor  fellow  often  blew  him- 
self up  with  his  own  powder),  and  the  word  of  com- 
mand was,  "  Give  fire  ! "  that  is,  put  fire  to  the  pow- 
der.i  This  was  soon  naturally  abbreviated  to  "  fire." 
Hence  fire  came  to  be  used,  pardonably  as  to  arms, 
for  shoot.  But  the  last  line  of  "Hamlet"  is,  "Go 
bid  the  soldiers  shoot,"  —  Fortinbras's  command  for 
the  military  salute  to  the  corpse  of  the  Prince.^ 
This  use  of  fire  for  shoot  has  gone  on,  until  we  now 
hear  archers  talk  of  "firing  an  arrow,"  a  somewhat 
absurd  expression.  The  next  stage  of  perversion  ia 
the  use  of  fire  to  express  the  projection  of  any  mis- 
lile ;  for  example,  to  fire  a  stone,  instead  of  to  throw 

1  Here  is  a  passage,  whimsically  in  point,  from  the  last  of  the  Eliza> 
bethan  dramatists :  — 

lacomo.     He'll  be  drunk  presently. 

Bomho.     Bottle,  in  battle  'ray !     Present !     Give  fire !     [DrihhsJ] 
Bo  I     As  you  were.     \^Sets  doicn  the  flask.'] 

(Shirley,  The  Royal  Master,  Act  H  ,  Scene  t> 

•  ftklutes  used  always  to  be  fired  with  shotted  guns. 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  409 

a  stone,  to  fire  a  cricket-ball,  instead  of  to  throw  one. 
Erelong  we  may  hear  of  a  fireman  firing  water  at  a 
fire ;  for  there  is  no  knowing  what  may  be  in  store 
for  us. 

Oalculate  (as  to  which  see  "  Words  and  their 
Uses")  is  another  word  similarly  misused  by  a  very 
large  number  of  speakers  not  unintelligent  or  unedu- 
cated. To  calculate  is  to  compute.  An  astronomer 
calculates  by  a  toilsome  and  vastly  comprehensive 
mathematical  process  the  orbit  of  a  planet.  A  busi- 
ness man  calculates  the  probable  cost  of  an  enterprise. 
Hence,  anything  which  is  very  carefully  designed  or 
adapted  to  a  certain  purpose  may  be  said  to  be  cal- 
culated for  it.  But  the  word,  or  at  least  the  partici- 
ple, is  very  commonly  used  to  mean,  merely,  fitted, 
Buited,  apt.  I  find  even  in  the  London  "  Times  "  the 
following  sentence :  "  The  stuff  itself  was  well  cal- 
culated to  burn,  though  of  course  it  was  not  there  for 
such  a  purpose."  This  is  almost  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  The  stuff  was  not  calculated  to  burn  ;  no  one 
had  contrived  it  for  that  purpose,  or  wished  it  to 
burn ;  it  was  merely  apt  to  burn,  liable  to  take  fire. 

Accident  is  a  word  which  too  commonly  suffers  a 
like  perversion.  It  is  used  as  if  it  meant  a  wound. 
Thus  I  read  in  an  advertisement  the  very  doubtful 
assertion  that  "witch-hazel  cures  accidents  and  inju- 
ries of  all  kinds."  Now,  accidents  are  of  countless 
kinds ;  among  them  are  the  falling  of  steeples,  the 
explosion  of  steam  boilers,  the  collision  of  railway 
trains,  and  the  falling  of  fat  into  the  fire ;  all  of 
which,  it  may  safely  be  said,  are  quite  uncurable,  even 
by  witch-hazel.  A  wound,  or  a  burn,  or  a  bodily  in- 
jury is  not  an  accident,  but  it  may  be,  and  it  gener- 
ally is,  the  result  of  an  accident.     But  such  is  the 


no  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

ignorant  and  vague  apprehension  of  the  meaning  of 
the  word  by  people  who  woukl  be  in  a  fidget  about 
their  grammar  that  1  have  heard  it  said  that  "  they 
were  carrying  accidents  into  the  hospital ; "  accidents 
being  used  to  mean  wounded  men  who  were  injured 
by  accident ! 

Every  once  in  a  while  is  a  phrase  most  often  heard 
from  ladies'  lij)S,  but  too  often  from  men,  and  some- 
times seen  in  print.  In  this  phrase  every  qualifies  all 
that  comes  after  it ;  and  what  is  a  once  in  a  while  ? 
The  nonsense  is  apparent.  This  phrase  is,  I  believe, 
an  Americanism  of  indisputable  origin  and  usage.  At 
least,  I  have  never  heard  it  except  from  American 
speakers,  or  met  with  it  except  in  American  writers. 
It  is  a  perversion  by  transposition  of  "once  in  every 
little  while,"  which,  although  not  a  very  good,  phrase, 
being  itself  a  perversion  of  "  once  in  a  little  while," 
is  yet  comprehensible.  But  a  moment's  reflection 
will  show  any  one  who  can  understand  the  use  of 
words  that  "  every  once  in  a  little  while  "  is  an  ab- 
surd and  meaningless  phrase,  —  an  illustration  of  the 
absoluteness  of  logical  position  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. 

Another  phrase  commonly  misused  is  make  way  — 
a  phrase  idiomatic,  although  found  in  other  lan- 
guages. It  is  misused  thus :  "  He  snatched  up  the 
cloth  and  made  way  with  it."  What  the  writer 
meant  to  say  was  that  the  thief  made  away  witli  the 
cloth.  When  he  began  to  run,  he  doubtless  made 
way  as  fast  as  he  could.  To  make  way  is  to  move 
■nore  or  less  rapidly,  to  dispatch  ;  to  go  off  with  is 
to  make  away  with.  Hence  the  phrase  "  He  made 
away  with  himself  "  for  "  connnitted  suicide,"  whicb 
js   not    unfrequently   perverted    into    "made    way.' 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  411 

The  mention  of  suicide  reminds  me  that  I  saw  the 
other  day,  in  a  newspaper  of  very  high  standing,  a 
mention  of  two  suicides,  "  one  successful  and  the 
other  unsuccessful."  I  wonder  what  kind  of  event 
an  unsuccessful  suicide  is.  A  few  repetitions  of  such 
a  nonsensical  blunder  as  this,  and  hundreds  of  people 
will  assume  that  suicide  means  an  attempt  upon  a 
man's  own  life. 

Some  of  the  most  ludicrous  mistakes  in  language 
that  are  made  are  to  be  seen  where  they  are  likely  to 
do  the  most  harm  —  in  the  street  railway  cars.  Thus, 
when  it  is  announced  that  "  children  more  than  five 
years  will  be  charged  full  fare,"  every  indignant 
father  of  a  strapping  lad  or  lass  swallows  with  his 
wrath  a  lesson  in  bad  English.  He  does  not  con- 
sider the  announcement  in  the  light  of  the  query  how 
a  child  can  be  more  than  five  years,  any  more  easily 
than  it  can  be  more  than  five  apples  or  more  than  five 
pairs  of  shoes.  He  regards  it  in  the  light  only  of  an 
extra  five  cents,  and  the  phrase  is  seared  into  his 
memory.  A  child  is  more  or  less  than  five  years  old^ 
or  of  age. 

Another  of  these  announcements  holds  a  bad  lesson 
before  the  public  eye  daily.  "  Passengers  are  ear- 
nestly requested  not  to  hold  conversation  with  either 
conductor  or  driver."  Now,  this  implies  that  there 
are  two  conductors  and  two  drivers,  and  that  the  pas- 
sengers are  asked  not  to  talk,  or,  in  elegant  phrase, 
''  hold  conversation,"  with  either  of  them.  The  sim- 
ple introduction  of  the  rectifies  the  phrase :  "  not  to 
hold  conversation  with  either  the  conductor  or  the 
driver."  The  error  of  which  this  is  an  example  is  a 
ommon  one  ;  the  is  omitted  after  either  and  or  from 
slovenliness  or  ignorance,  and  the  result  is  not  only 


412  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

slovenly  English,  but  actual  confusion,  whieli,  in  laws, 
for  instance  (and  most  of  our  laws  of  late  years  aro 
drawn  up  in  a  very  inexact,  slipshod  way),  is  pro- 
ductive of  serious  injury. 

In  and  into  are  very  commonly  confused  ;  but  of 
the  two,  into  is  much  the  greater  sufferer,  as  some 
people  seem  inclined  to  drive  it  out  of  the  language. 
Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  hear  a  man  say 
that  he  got  in  a  'bus  or  car,  meaning  that  he  got  into 
it.  When  he  had  got  into  the  'bus,  then  he  was  in  it. 
So,  some  people  will  say  that  they  have  not  looked  in 
A  book  for  a  long  while,  meaning  that  they  have  not 
looked  into  a  book. 

The  difference  in  the  signification  of  these  two 
words  is  that  into  implies  tendency  toward,  if  not 
motion ;  in  implies  confinement,  limitation.  We 
walk  into  a  room,  and  then  are  in  it ;  we  look  into 
an  affair  ;  we  see  into  a  scheme ;  a  fish  swims  from  a 
brook  into  a  pond,  and  then  swims  in  the  pond.  But 
the  distinction  between  the  uses  is  sometimes  not 
clear.  I  had  marked  this  sentence,  as  I  read  it  in 
Trollope's  "  American  Senator,"  chapter  iv.,  as  errone- 
ous in  the  use  of  into  :  "  Seated  back  on  the  sofa  was 
Mr.  Ribbs,  the  butcher,  who  was  allowed  i7ito  the 
society  as  being  a  specially  modest  man."  But  on 
reverting  to  it  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  wrong.  Re- 
ceived or  admitted  into  the  society  would  certainly 
be  right;  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  un- 
pleasant jar  on  my  ear  was  produced  by  the  unhappy 
use  of  the  word  alloived. 

Directly.  The  misuse  of  this  woi'd,  in  the  sense  of 
when  or  as  soon  as,  is  British ;  but  as  bad  example 
is  contagious,  I  remark  upon  it  anew,  although  it 
A  considered  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses."     Directly 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  413 

means  straightway,  and  so  in  the  shortest  time  ;  senses 
from  which  there  is  no  right  road  to  the  sense  of 
when  or  as  soon  as.  And  yet  the  most  eminent  Brit- 
ish writers  (with  a  few  exceptions,  among  whom  is 
Macaulay)  use  the  word  in  the  latter  sense.  Buckle's 
pages  are  peppered  with  it.  For  example,  "  . .  .  .  but 
Richelieu,  directly  he  was  called  to  the  council,  deter- 
mined to  humble  that  house  in  both  its  branches." 
(History  of  Civilization,  vol.  ii.,  chap,  i.)  "  The  cele- 
brated work  of  De  Lolme  on  the  English  constitution 
was  suppressed  directly  it  appeared^  (The  same, 
Bhap.  V.)  Buckle's  misuse  of  the  word  is  so  frequent 
that  I  stopped  making  memorandums  of  it.  Cardi- 
nal Newman  also  writes,  "  .  .  ,  .  but  that  directly  they 
ire  loved  for  their  own  sake,  then  they  return  to  their 
)riginal  dust."  (Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,  No. 
XVII.)  This  perversion  is  of  recent  origin,  and  will 
probably  be  corrected  by  criticism. 

Anticipate  is  commonly,  it  may  almost  be  said 
generally,  misused  in  the  sense  of  expect,  look  for. 
Thus  :  I  anticipate  going  to  Albany  to-morrow,  I 
anticipate  seeing  her  this  evening.  Now,  anticipate 
means,  by  derivation,  to  take  beforehand,  and  its 
proper  meaning  in  English  is  to  take  first  possession 
of,  or  to  take  before  the  proper  time.  If  a  man's 
note  is  due  on  the  30th,  and  he  pays  it  on  the  25th, 
he  anticipates  its  due  payment.  A  man  may  antici- 
pate another  in  doing  something  which  both  intend 
doing;  that  is,  he  may  succeed  in  doing  it  first.  But 
his  looking  forward  to  doing  either  of  these  acts  ia 
not  anticipation  ;  it  is  expectation. 

Particle  is  strangely  used  to  mean  "at  all,"  or  "in 
uny  degree,"  as  we  very  colloquially  use  bit.  There 
Is  a  man  who  walks  up  and  down  Broadway  bearing 


414  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

i  picture  which  represents  a  triumphant  dentist  fiend- 
ishly brandishing  in  the  air  a  forceps  containing  a 
huge,  three-fanged,  uprooted  double  tooth,  while  he 
demands  of  a  meek  individual  in  a  large  chair,  "  Did 
it  hurt  you  ?  "  to  which  the  meek  individual  replies, 
from  the  chair,  "Not  a  particle."  He  meant  "not  at 
all,"  or,  more  simply,  "no."  Particle  is,  through  the 
Latin,  a  diminutive  of  part^  and  means  the  smallest 
possible  division  of  matter;  and  it  is  so  matei'ial  and 
mechanical  in  its  signification  that  the  use  of  it  to 
express  degree,  and  especially  degree  of  pleasure  or 
pain,  is,  to  say  the  very  least,  in  the  worst  possible 
taste.  Its  only  support  is  in  the  common  phrase, 
"not  a  bit."  But  the  image  presented  to  the  general 
mind  by  hit  has  caused  the  word  expressing  it  to  be 
used  in  almost  all  languages  as  it  is  in  English.  It 
Beems  to  be  a  metaphor  which  the  child  invents  and 
the  man  retains. 

Remember  and  recollect  are  used  interchangeably, 
as  if  they  were  synonyms,  and  the  preference  seems 
to  be  most  generally  given  to  the  latter.^  They  are 
not  synonymous,  and  the  distinction  between  them 
is  an  important  one,  which  ought  to  be  preserved. 
That  which  lies  in  our  memory  at  hand,  ready  for  use 
at  any  moment,  we  remember ;  but  we  also  really  do 
remember  much  that  does  not  lie  at  hand,  that  we 
cannot  find  in  our  mind's  storehouse  on  the  instant, 
and  this  w^e  try  to  recollect,  that  is,  to  re-collect. 
Therefore,  the  expression,  I  don't  remember,  but  I 
will  try  to  recollect,  is  not  only  correct,  but  it  sets 
'oith  a  condition  of  the  mind  expressible  in  no  other 
way,  and  to  speak  of  which  we  have  frequent  neces- 
•ity.     The  ability  to  do  so  will  be  impa'red,  if  not 

1  See  Wordt  and  their  Uses. 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  415 

altogether  lost,  when  the  distinction  between  the  two 
words  is  done  away. 

Next.  A  correspondent  asks,  "  What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  next  when  used  to  designate  a  future 
day  of  the  week?"  and  gives  as  one  example  of  a 
doubt  as  to  its  meaning,  "  To-day  is  Thursday,  and 
if  I  should  agree  to  be  in  New  York  next  Saturday, 
I  should  expect  to  be  there  the  day  after  to-morrow  : 
but  I  find  that  many  people  would  think  that  I  meant 
to  be  there  just  one  week  later  ;  "  and  as  another, 
"  Divines  will  announce  that  there  will  be  such  or 
Buch  a  meeting  next  Saturday  week,  when  they  mean 
that  the  meeting  will  be  held  on  the  second  Saturday 
after  the  giving  of  the  notice."  The  first  of  these 
uses  or  apprehensions  is  wrong,  the  second  right. 
Next  means,  merely,  nearest.  It  is  the  superlative  of 
near.,  —  near,  nigher,  next.  Its  meaning  has  not 
changed  a  whit  for  more  than  a  thousand  years.  We 
say  that  a  minor  brings  a  suit  "  by  his  next  friend ; " 
that  is,  by  his  nearest  friend.  The  next  house  to  our 
own  is  simply  the  nearest  house.  If  we  are  speaking 
on  Thursday,  "  next  Saturday  "  means  the  nearest 
Saturday  to  the  day  of  our  speaking ;  that  is,  the  day 
but  one  after.  I  have  observed  the  misuse  mentioned 
by  my  correspondent,  and  I  cannot  explain  it  except 
by  attributing  it  to  mere  blundering  misapprehension. 
Next  Saturday  is  the  Saturday  of  next  week  only 
when  we  speak  on  Saturday.  Next  Saturday  week, 
however,  is  "  short  "  for  a  week  from  next  Saturday ; 
and  therefore,  of  course,  does  mean  the  second  Satur- 
day after  the  day  of  speaking. 

3Iemoranda  is  a  word  which  lingers  far  too  long 
among  us.  It  is  the  Latin  plural  of  memorandum^ 
which  word  has  been  so  very  long  in  our  language 


416  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

that  it  surely  is  naturalized.  It  has  far  more  light 
to  be  treated  as  an  Enghsh  word  than  a  score  of 
others  to  which  no  one  would  dream  of  affixing  a 
Latin  termination.  A  correspondent,  a  lad  whose 
Christian  name  is  Poins  (which  touches  me  nearly), 
sends  me  a  plea  for  memoranda.  But  a  fellow  named 
Poins  should  know  that  nearly  three  hundred  years 
ago  another  fellow,  named  Falstaff,  whose  English  \a 
unexceptionably  good,  said  memorandums,  in  a  pas- 
sage of  "  Henry  IV.,"  Part  L,  Act  IV.,  Scene  3, 
which  is  here  somewhat  unquotable. 

Tlieir  is  very  commonly  misused  with  reference  to 
a  singular  noun.  Even  John  Ruskin  has  written 
such  a  sentence  as  this  :  "  But  if  a  customer  wishes 
you  to  injure  their  foot  or  to  disfigure  it,  you  are  to 
refuse  their  pleasure."  (Fors  Clavigera,  No.  77, 
May,  1877.)  How  Mr.  Ruskin  could  have  written 
Buch  a  sentence  as  that  (for  plainly  there  is  no  slip 
of  the  pen  or  result  of  imperfect  interlinear  correc- 
tion in  it),  or  how,  it  having  been  written,  it  could  be 
passed  by  an  intelligent  proof-reader,  I  cannot  sur- 
mise. It  is,  perhaps,  an  exemplification  of  the  straits 
to  which  we  are  driven  by  the  lack  of  a  pronoun  of 
common  gender  meaning  both  he  and  she,  his  and 
her.  But,  admitting  this  lack,  the  fact  remains  that 
his  is  the  representative  pronoun,  as  mankind  includes 
both  men  and  women.  Mr.  Ruskin  might  better  have 
said,  "  If  a  customer  wishes  you  to  injure  his  foot  you 
are  to  refuse  his  pleasure."  To  use  "  his  or  her  "  in 
cases  of  this  kind  seems  to  me  very  finical  and  pe- 
dantic. 

Ascetic  is  a  word  which,  if  used  at  all,  must  be 
used,  it  would  seem,  in  its  proper  sense.  But,  unfort- 
unately, there  are  many  such  words  which  are  per 


COMMON  MISUSAGES.  417 

rerted  by  ignorant  affectation.  I  have  heard  ascetic 
used  as  if  it  meant  elegant,  refined  ;  and  here  is  an 
example  of  such  a  use,  or  something  like  it,  from  a 
newspaper  of  high  standing.  Of  General  Fremont's 
library  it  is  said  that  "  it  was  such  a  collection  of  books 
as  a  man  of  General  Fremont's  ascetic  tastes  would 
Belect."  Now  ascetic  really  means  austere,  rigid.  A 
hermit's  habits  of  life  are  ascetic.  What  the  writer 
of  the  sentence  just  quoted  meant  by  it  we  can  only 
guess  at ;  but  we  guess  aesthetic. 

Identified  is  strangely  misused  by  combining  it 
with  incongruous  words.  We  most  frequently  hear 
it  now  in  the  phrase,  such  or  such  a  man  was  "  promi- 
nently identified  "  with  such  a  party  or  such  a  busi- 
ness interest.  Now,  to  any  one  who  knows  and  thinks 
what  prominently  means  and  what  identified  means, 
the  idea  of  using  the  former  to  qualify  the  latter  is 
absurd.  Identity  is  sameness  ;  prominence  is  a  stand- 
ing out  or  apart  from.  To  say  that  a  man  is  identi- 
fied with  a  cause  or  a  business  is  of  itself  a  coarse 
overstraining  of  metaphor  ;  but  to  say  that  he  is  promi- 
nently identified  with  it  is  past  the  extreme  limits  of 
tolerable  license. 

Balance.  It  is,  perhaps,  hopeless  in  a  community 
BO  given  up  to  trade  as  ours  is  to  check  the  use  of  the 
word  balance  in  the  sense  of  that  which  is  left.  Peo- 
ple speak  even  of  the  balance  of  a  day,  of  spending 
thus  or  so  the  balance  of  their  time,  or  even  the  bal- 
ance of  their  lives.  This  to  my  taste  is  hideous 
English.  Balance  means,  first,  scales;  next,  what 
will  keep  scales  evenly  poised  ;  and,  finally,  by  meta- 
phor, the  sum  which  equalizes  an  account.  But  it 
does  not  mean  that  which  is  left  of  anything,  whether 
>f  a  day  or  of  a  life-time     to  express  which  we  have 

27 


418  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

rest,  remainder,  and  residue.  It  would  be  better  to 
Bay,  what  is  left,  or  even  what  is  over,  than  the  bal- 
ance. I  have  remarked  upon  this  misuse  before  ;  so 
have  others ;  but  it  cannot  be  too  often  or  too  se- 
verely censured. 

Lengthened.  Why  lengthened  is  misused  as  it  is 
I  cannot  see.  For  example,  in  the  London  "  Times : " 
"  On  Sunday  afternoon  the  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  had 
a  lengthened  audience  of  her  Majesty  at  Windsor." 
What  the  writer  meant  was  that  the  audience  was 
long ;  and  why  he  did  not  say  so  is  a  puzzle.  If  an 
audience  is,  by  custom  or  appointment,  to  be  an  hour, 
or  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  or  five  minutes  long,  and  then 
for  any  reason  it  is  made  an  hour  and  a  half,  or 
twenty  minutes,  or  ten  minutes,  it  is  lengthened. 
But  if  there  were  no  limit  of  custom  or  appointment, 
and  it  should  last  all  day,  it  is  only  a  long,  or  a  very 
long,  audience.  And  as  of  audiences  so  of  sermons, 
and  the  like.  We  hear  of  lengthy  sermons,  when  what 
is  meant  is  merely  long  or  very  long  sermons,  or,  to 
use  a  very  expressive  old  English  word,  longsome  ser- 
mons, —  a  word  strictly  analogical  in  its  expressive- 
ness, longsome  being  formed  from  lotig,  as  loearisome 
is  from  weary. 

We  are  beginning  to  see  in  advertisements  now  the 
phrase,  table-board ;  for  example,  "table-board  one 
dollar  a  day."  If  not  an  incorrect,  it  is  a  very  droll, 
combination  of  words.  For  board  thus  used  means 
that  which  is  placed  upon  the  board  or  table.  Board 
is  one  thing,  and  lodging  is  another  ;  so  that  we  see 
signs,  "  board  and  lodging."  There  are  few  words 
in  our  language  so  absolutely  synonj'mous  as  board 
Hud  table,  the  one  being  the  English,  the  other  the 
Homance,  name  for  the  same  thing;   so  that  table* 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  419 

hoard  is  simply  table-table  or  board-board.  Now, 
this  use  of  table-board  is  an  example  of  the  history 
which  often  is  embodied  in  words  and  phrases.  It 
Bhows  that  in  New  York,  and  in  other  American  cities 
which  delight  in  being  little  imitation  New  Yorks, 
lodging-houses  are  passing  away,  and  that  board  means 
both  board  and  lodging,  unless  it  is  otherwise  ex- 
pressed. The  phrase  table-board  would  sound  very 
strangely  to  British  ears.  It  is  thus  far  an  Ameri- 
canism ;  almost  a  New  York-ism. 

It  is,  perhaps,  as  hopeless  to  check  the  prevalence  of 
"  on  the  street "  as  that  of  balance  for  rest,  as  to  both 
of  which  errors  something  is  said  in  "  Words  and 
their  Uses."  The  proper  phrase,  both  logically  and 
by  good  usage,  is  "  in  the  street."  A  house  even, 
although  it  fronts  on  a  street,  is  in  a  street.  There 
is  a  noise  in  the  street ;  people  walk  in  the  street,  not 
on  the  street.  A  street  is  not  a  surface  ;  it  is  a  pas- 
sage-way, in  or  through  which  people  go.  True,  we 
speak  of  a  man  being  on  his  way  or  on  the  road  to 
such  a  place,  but  we  do  not  thereby  mean  that  he 
was  physically  upon  a  certain  surface  of  earth  called 
a  road  :  on  is  then  used  idiomatically,  as  it  is  in  the 
phrases,  "  on  the  run,"  "  on  the  jump,"  "  on  the  gal- 
lop." This  bad  and  pedantically  literal  use  of  on, 
which  is  becoming  prevalent  here,  but  not  in  England, 
is,  I  believe,  a  Scotticism.  At  any  rate,  I  find  it  used 
by  Carlyle :  "  Some  said  they  had  seen  her  on  the 
street,  some  on  the  roofs  of  the  adjoining  houses." 
(Wilhelm  Meister,  ii.  4.)  "  On  the  street  they  heard 
the  cry  of  fire."  (The  same,  v.  13.)  Here  the  second 
use  of  the  word  is  correct,  and  it  illustrates  the  incor- 
rectness of  the  first  use  and  of  the  third ;  for  Carlyle 
Rurel}'  did  not  mean  that  the  girl  was  on  the  street 


i20  EVERY -DAY   ENGLISH. 

as  he  did  that  she  was  on  the  house-tops.  To  *«,y 
that  a  noise  is  on  a  street  is  a  deplorable  perversion 
of  language. 

DonH  for  does  rCt  is  one  of  the  commonest  errors 
in  speech.  Doesn't,  the  contracted  form  of  "does 
not,"  is  properly  used,  of  course,  with  he,  she,  or  it; 
because  we  say  he  does,  she  does,  it  does.  DonH,  the 
contracted  form  of  "do  not,"  belongs  to  I,  we,  you, 
and  they.  "  He  don't "  is  one  of  the  few  violations  of 
grammatical  form  possible  in  English.  I  am  piteously 
entreated,  by  more  than  one  correspondent,  to  say 
that  "  he  don't "  is  bad  English,  and  therefore  I  say 
it.  But  "  he  don't "  for  "  he  does  n't  "  is,  I  sus- 
pect, an  example  rather  of  phonetic  degradation  than 
of  ignorance  or  defiance  of  grammar,  like  I^d  for 
/'M,  the  proper  contraction  of  I  would ;  Vd  being 
the  contracted  form  of  I  had.  Therefore,  "  He 
don't "  does  n't  grieve  me  as  it  grieves  my  corre- 
spondents. 

Some  of  these  take  such  matters  more  to  heart  than 
I  do.  For  example,  here  is  one  who  tells  me  he  is  so 
aggrieved  by  the  use  of  less,  in  such  a  phrase  as 
"  less  than  nine  letters,"  that  "  within  ten  years  "  he 
has  written  "  some  hundreds  of  protests  against  the 
use  of  the  adjective  of  quantity  for  that  of  number, 
and  not  a  few  to  that  most  rare  and  exquisite  of  all 
critical  journals,  the  '  Evening  Post ; '  but,"  he  wails, 
"  all  to  no  purpose."  I  am  sorry  for  him,  although  I 
cannot  imagine  a  man  so  afflicted  by  the  vse  of  less 
for  fewer  that  he  should  write  hundreds  of  letters 
about  it.  Strictly,  he  is  right,  of  course;  but  the 
matter  is  not  one  about  which  a  man  should  rend  hia 
heart,  or  even  his  garments. 

Every.     A  misuse  of  the  word  every  is  worth  t» 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  421 

mark,  —  the  using  it  in  a  plural  sense,  which  is  very 
common.  Thus  :  "Every  person  rose  and  took  their 
leave,"  instead  of  "  All  rose  and  took  their  leave." 
The  word  is  thus  constantly  misused  by  persons  who 
would  not  be  guilty  of  saying,  for  example,  "  Every 
one  thiyik  so  and  so,"  instead  of  "  Every  one  thinks,^* 
etc.  But  even  a  writer  like  Mallock  has  "  Every  one 
looked  about  them  silently."  (New  Republic,  Book 
III.,  chap,  i.)  In  such  sentences,  however,  the  use 
of  this  word  is  made  difficult  by  the  lack  of  a  singular 
pronoun  of  dual  sex.  On  the  occasion  referred  to  by 
Mr.  Mallock  there  were  women  present  as  well  as 
men.  He  did  not  wish  to  write,  "  Every  one  then 
looked  about  bim  or  her,"  nor  did  he  wish  to  exclude 
the  women  from  his  assertion.  Nevertheless,  this  is 
no  warrant  for  the  conjunction  of  everi/  and  them. 
His  meaning  would  have  been  expressed  by  "  all 
looked  about  them,"  etc. 

O71  to.  The  misuse  of  this  combination  in  the 
sense  of  upon  is  common  and  is  growing.  Mr.  Trol- 
lope,  whose  English  is  usually  good  and  idiomatic,  al- 
though not  precise,  is  a  constant  offender  in  this  re- 
Bpect.     Here  are  two  instances  in  a  single  sentence : 

"  It  was  a  large,  brick  building  facing  on  to  the  villao-e 
Btreet,  ....  but  with  a  front  on  to  its  own  ground."  (An 
Eye  for  an  Eye,  chap,  v.) 

The  latter  of  the  two  is  very  flagrant :  in  both  the 
proper  word  is  upon.  So  we  hear  it  said  that  a  cat 
jumped  on  to  a  chair.  The  cat  jumped  upon,  that  is 
up  on,  the  chair.  She  could  not  jump  on  to  the  chair ; 
for  when  she  was  once  on  the  chair  she  could  not 
jump  to  it.  To  jump  on  a  chair  is  to  be  on  the  chair 
l,nd  jump  there.  It  is  like  dancing  on  a  tight  rope,  01 
walking  07i  stilts,  or  standing  on  a  platform. 


i22  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Possessives.  Quite  lately  there  has  come  into 
vogue  in  the  newspapers  a  use  of  the  possessive  case 
which  seems  to  me  objectionable.  For  example, 
"  A  Pacific  steamer's  loss,"  "  Brooklyn's  murder," 
*'  John  Smith's  robbery."  In  all  such  cases  a  clear, 
clean  use  of  language  requires  a  preposition  instead 
of  the  possessive  case ;  for  what  is  meant  is  the  loss 
of  a  Pacific  steamer,  the  murder  in  Brooklyn,  the 
robbery  of  John  Smith.  A  Pacific  steamer's  loss  is 
the  loss  that  has  befallen  a  Pacific  steamer,  —  it 
might  be  of  a  screw,  or  a  smoke-stack,  or  what  not. 
John  Smith's  robbery  really  means  the  robbery  that 
John  Smith  has  committed ;  and  we  naturally  expect 
to  hear  what  or  whom  he  robbed.  As  to  phrases 
like  Brooklyn's  murder,  they  are  simply  in  the  worst 
taste  possible,  very  bad  English.  For,  although  a 
city  might  metaphorically  be  said  to  possess  a  mur- 
der "  of  its  ain  particular,"  as  the  Scots  would  saj^ 
and  although  instances  of  such  a  use  of  the  possessive 
might  be  produced  from  poetical  writing,  this  is  no 
justification,  but  rather  the  contrary,  of  a  like  usage 
in  every-day  cold-blooded  speech  or  writing.  Lan- 
guage is  so  much  learned  from  newspapers  nowadays 
that  this  growing  solecism  demands  notice. 

Expect.  I  have  heretofore  remarked  upon  a  too 
common  misuse  of  this  word  in  the  simple  sense  of 
think  or  believe.  This  misuse  has  become  very  com- 
mon ;  nor  is  it  confined  to  uneducated  speakers  or  to 
untrained  writers.  I  very  recently  observed  two  in- 
stances of  it  in  Mr.  Mallock's  remarkable  book,  "  The 
New  Republic  :  "  — 

" '  I  expect,'  said   Miss   Merton,  '  that  we   are  naturall* 
taore  introspective  thau  men.'"     (Book  III.,  chap,  ii.) 
"  For,  in  the  first  place,  I  expect  it  requires  certain  nat 


COMMON  MISUSAGES.  423 

oral  advantages  of  position  to  overlook  life."  (Book  III., 
chap,  ii.) 

Mr.  Mallock  is  not  only  a  thoughtful  writer  and  a 
brilliant  one,  but  he  is  a  schohu' ;  and  he  knows  as  well 
as  any  one  can  know  that  expect  means  to  look  for- 
ward to,  and  not  to  think,  or  to  believe,  or  guess,  or 
surmise,  or  conjecture.  And  yet,  meaning  to  express 
the  idea  think  or  believe,  he  wrote  expect^  —  wrote  it 
intentionally  and  by  no  blunder,  being  led  into  his 
error  by  the  mere  effect  of  contamination.  He  heard 
people  around  him  use  expect  in  that  way,  and  he 
read  it  in  newspapers  and  in  magazines,  and  his 
knowledge  did  not  prove  a  sufficient  disinfectant. 
His  example  shows  the  use  of  such  verbal  criticism  as 
this,  which  otherwise  would  be  trivial  business. 

Remunerate.  A  common  error  in  the  use  of  this 
word  shows  a  misapprehension  of  its  meaning,  which 
confounds  it  with  reimburse.  For  example,  this  pas- 
sage from  a  respectable  newspaper  :  "  His  assets  are 
very  large,  though  in  the  present  condition  of  trade 
it  is  thought  they  could  not  be  made  remunerative." 
Now,  a  trade,  or  even  a  profession,  is  remunerative  to 
the  person  engaged  in  it ;  that  is,  it  makes  him  a  good 
return  for  his  outlay  of  time  and  money.  But  assets, 
however  valuable,  cannot  be  remunerative.  It  might 
properly  be  said  that  it  is  thought  that  in  the  present 
condition  of  trade  the  assets,  although  large,  will  not 
reimburse  the  creditors. 

Plenty  is  very  commonly  misused  to  mean  many, 
enough  in  numbers.  It  is  aot  only  heard  thus  col- 
loquially, but  may  be  found  in  the  books  of  good 
writers.  For  example,  "  Plenty  of  the  gang  told 
Die.  They  all  know  it."  (Miss  Martineau,  Game 
Law  Tales,  vol.  ii.,  p.  74.)     Plenty  means  a  sufficient 


424  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

or  a  large  supply  of  anything,  as,  plenty  of  corn  and 
wine.  It  does  not  refer  to  numbers.  "  Plenty  of 
tlie  gang  "  reminds  me  of  the  speech  of  a  youngster 
who  said  that  in  a  certain  place  there  was  an  "  abun- 
dance of  boys."  Many  of  the  gang,  or  enough  of  the 
gang,  would  have  been  right. 

Executed.  In  "  Words  and  their  Uses  "  I  declared 
and  showed  that  the  general  use  of  this  word  now  and 
for  a  long  time  past,  to  mean  put  to  death  in  pursu- 
ance of  sentence  of  a  court  or  other  superior  power, 
is  really  absurd,  and  is  tolerable  only  on  the  ground 
of  custom.  When  I  did  this,  I  of  course  knew  very 
well  that  I  was  attacking  a  usage  quite  tln-ee  hundred 
years  old,  which  has  the  support  given  by  the  example 
of  the  best  writers.  Because  of  that  usage,  however, 
none  the  less  it  is  objectionable  as  a  damaging  and 
confusing  perversion  of  language.  Of  this  Buckle 
furnishes  the  following  striking  illustrations.  De- 
scribing Philip  II.  of  Spain's  cruel  persecution  of 
Protestants,  he  says  :  — 

"  lie  ordered  that  every  heretic  who  refused  to  recant 
should  be  burned.  If  the  heretic  did  recant,  some  indul- 
gence was  granted  ;  but  having  been  once  tainted,  he  must 
die.  Instead  of  being  burned,  he  was  therefore  to  be  exe- 
cuted."    (History  of  Civilization,  vol.  ii.,  chap,  viii.) 

That  this  use  of  the  word  was  not  one  of  those 
casual  slips  to  which  all  writers  are  subject,  and  from 
which  they  are  often  saved  by  the  care  of  correctors 
of  the  press,  is  shown  by  the  recurrence  of  the  word 
m  the  same  strange  sense,  and  even  in  a  more  pro- 
nounced manner,  on  the  next  page :"....  an  esti- 
mate probably  not  far  from  the  truth,  since  we  know 
from  otlier  sources  that  in  one  year  eight  thousand 
»eere  either  executed  or  burned." 


COMMON   MISUSAGES.  425 

Here  "  either  "  very  distinctly  and  purposely  op- 
poses burning  to  execution.  But  whether  the  heretic 
were  put  to  death  by  burning  or  in  any  other  way,  it 
was  in  execution  of  a  sentence.  The  sentence  might 
have  been  that  he  should  be  burned,  or  be  hanged, 
or  be  beheaded,  or  be  tortured  to  death.  If  he  were 
executed  in  one  ease,  he  was  executed  in  any  other. 
There  is  no  form  of  death  that  is  specifically  execu- 
tion. Buckle  probably  means  that  those  who  were 
not  burned  were  either  hanged  or  beheaded ;  but 
there  is  no  warrant  or  justification  for  such  a  lim- 
itation of  the  sense  of  the  word  execute.  A  capital 
execution  is  sometimes  by  shooting.  We  have  here 
an  example  of  the  confusion  which  is  a  natural  and 
almost  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the  arbitrary, 
abnormal  use  of  words,  —  an  example  which  illus- 
trates the  truth  of  the  doctrine  that  mere  usage 
should  not  be  accepted  as  a  final  law  in  language. 
This  instance  and  others  which  I  have  given,  and 
yet  others  which  might  be  produced,  from  Buckle's 
writings  are  the  more  important  and  impressive,  not 
only  from  the  fact  of  his  eminence  as  a  writer,  but 
from  consideration  of  the  other  fact  that  he  was  a 
very  learned  and  extremely  careful  writer,  and  one 
who  had  (as  his  diary  informs  us)  made  style  a 
special  study.  Yet  he  was  neither  so  correct  nor 
(apart  from  the  thoughts  which  he  presented)  so 
impressive  a  writer  as  other  writers  whose  style  is 
unlabored. 

Pocket-handkerchief  and   neck-handkerchief.      No 

vrror  in  usage  is  too  trifling  to  be  made  the  subject 

f   verbal   criticism  ;   but  I  should   not  make  these 

iBompounds   the  subject  of    remark    had  I  not  been 

requested  to  do  so,  which,  indeed,  is  true  of  much 


426  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

that  I  have  written  of  this  kind.  Kerchief  is  an 
Anglicized  and  corrupted  form  of  the  French  couvre- 
chef  an  antiquated  word,  the  last  syllable  of  which 
is  the  obsolete  chiefs  the  head.  I  find  among  my 
memorandums  an  interesting  passage  from  the  an- 
cient French  poem,  "  Le  Roman  de  la  Rose,"  written 
about  A.  D.  1310,  which  shows  both  words,  the  com- 
pound and  the  simple,  in  striking  juxtaposition  :  — 

"  Tantost  Abstinence  contrainte 
Vest  d'une  robe  caraeline, 
Et  s'atourne  comme  beguyne, 
Et  eut  d'ung  large  couvrcchief, 
Et  d'ung  blanc  drap  convert  son  chief.''^ 

That  is,  "  had  a  large  kerchief,  and  with  a  white 
cloth  covered  her  head."  Kerchief  thus  meaning 
originally  a  cloth  to  cover  the  head,  it  is  well  enough 
to  call  a  similar  cloth  for  the  neck  a  neck-kerchief, 
and  one  for  use  in  the  hand  a  hand-kerchief  ;  but 
pocket-handkerchief  and  neck-handkerchief  are  the 
abomination  of  superfluity  and  the  effervescence  of 
haberdashery. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,   OLD    AND  NEW. 

Under  the  convenient  beading  of  this  chapter  I 
iball  gather  a  very  few  of  the  brief  colloquial  discus- 
sions  into  which  I  have  been  led,  either  rarely  by 
critics,  or  mucli  more  frequently  by  correspondents, 
Bince  the  publication  of  "  Words  and  their  Uses."  I 
shall  purposely  leave  them  as  nearly  in  their  original 
form  as  seems  suitable  to  their  present  place,  not 
smoothing  their  controversial  edge  or  pruning  them 
of  the  repetition  of  arguments  pro  and  con,  to  which 
it  seems  to  me  that  they  ov/e  any  interest  which  they 
may  have  had  when  they  were  first  published,  or  may 
hope  to  awaken  at  present.  For  a  like  reason  I  shall 
in  some  cases  give  the  letters  of  my  correspondents.^ 

"  HAD  RATHER  "   AND    "  HAD  n't   OUGHTER." 

In  a  letter  dated  from  one  of  our  colleges  of  the 
best  standing  the  writer  brings  up  for  consideration 
the  word  had  in  the  phrases,  "  As  if  a  hundred  horses 
bad  better  not  have  been  killed  "  and  "  He  had  better 
have  avoided  it."  To  this  use  of  had  he  objects,  and 
ae  makes  the  following  suggestion  :  — 

"  The  frequent  employment  in  conversation  of  the  sound 
of  the  final  rf  as  a  common  contraction  for  had  and  would, 
in  connection  with  rather  and  better,  might  easily  cause  the 

1  I  nevertheless  here  repeat  for  certainly  the  twentieth  time  my  earnest 
request  that  my  readers  and  my  non-readers  will  not  call  upon  me  to  de- 
eide  disputed  points  in  language.  I  have  never  set  myself  up  as  com' 
tetent  for  such  an  ofBce,  and  for  it  I  have  nei.her  leisure  nor  liking. 


428  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

phrase  I  had  rather  to  be  substituted  for  I  luould  rather,  in 
conversation,  through  the  colloquial  I'd  rather ;  and  thus 
it  might  pass  into  writing.  The  same  applies  to  better. 
Does  this  afford  a  sufficient  explanation  ?  " 

The  supposition,  which  is  not  new,  that  had  rather 
is  the  fruit  of  a  misapprehended  contraction  common 
to  both  had  and  would  is  not  well  founded.  Doubt- 
less, Z'^  rather  may  represent  I  would  rather;  and 
when  intended  as  a  contraction  of  that  phrase  it 
might  be  misapprehended  as  a  contraction  of  I  had 
rather.  It  is  true  also  that  both  phrases  are  used  by 
writers  of  good  standing.  But  the  conclusion  drawn 
by  my  correspondent,  and  even  by  some  grammarians, 
is  not  warranted ;  for  I  had  rather,  you  had  better,  and 
the  like  have  been  in  common  use  for  centuries.  On 
the  other  hand,  that  fact  proves  only  itself  ;  that  is, 
a  certain  frequency  of  use.  It  does  not  show  that 
the  phrase  in  question  is  the  best  for  its  purpose,  or 
that  it  is  a  reasonable  use  of  language  ;  although  the 
latter  is  always  to  be  presumed  in  a  plirase  or  a  con- 
struction of  long  and  general  acceptance.  It  may  be 
added,  as  of  some  interest  and  as  conclusive  against 
the  assumption  that  I''d  represents  I  would,  that  the 
I  in  should  and  woidd  was  pronounced  until  about  a 
century  and  a  half  ago,  and  was  so  strongly  insisted 
upon  that  we  have  to  go  back  only  about  two  hun- 
dred years  to  find  the  contraction  of  1  would  printed 
I ''Id,  which  shows  that  J't?,  which  appears  side  by 
side  with  /  7c?,  was  then  a  contracted  form  of  /  had. 

The  question  as  to  the  correctness  of  had  rather^ 
and  the  unfavorable  judgment  upon  it  which  I  casu- 
ally expressed  in  "  The  Galaxy,"  were  discussed  in 
an  essay  in  the  "  Educational  Monthly."  The  tone 
of  the  writer  is  magisterial  and  severe  :  but  it  lacka 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      429 

khat  rough  flavor  of  personal  discourtesy  which  some 
champions  of  usus  et  prceterea  nihil  think  becoming 
in  them,  —  an  assumption  that  I  shall  not  dispute,  — 
or  which,  perhaps,  they  find  themselves  compelled  to 
adopt  as  seasoning  to  give  some  zest  to  the  flat  dull- 
ness of  trite  platitude.  There  is  so  much  satisfaction 
in  meeting  a  manly  and  fair  opponent  that  I  wish 
the  arguments  of  the  writer  in  the  "  Educational 
Monthly  "  were  more  pointedly  directed  against  my 
position.  But  in  fact  there  is  very  little  of  it  that 
concerns  me,  and  that  little  is  easily  disposed  of  ;  for 
almost  all  of  the  writer's  argument  and  irony  is  put 
forth  against  those  (for  it  seems  that  there  are  such) 
who  regard  Jiad  in  phrases  like  /  had  rather  go  as 
"  an  auxiliary  verb,"  and  who  find  fault  with  it  in 
those  constructions  because  "  it  will  not  parse."  ^ 
Now,  even  as  to  whether  there  really  be  such  a  thing 
as  an  auxiliary  verb  I  very  much  doubt ;  and  as  to 
whether  any  English  sentence  would  "  parse  "  I  have 
not  once  concerned  myself  since  I  came  from  under 
the  ferule  that  tenderly  guided  my  earliest  years.^  It 
may  be  that  it  would  have  been  better  for  me  and  for 
my  readers  if  I  had  made  a  grammarian  of  myself; 
but  that  does  not  affect  the  fact  that  I  have  not ;  and 
^he  only  wrong  done  me  by  the  author  of  the  article 
/n  question  is  that  he  speaks  of  my  little  paragraph 
R,s  "  the  latest  instance  of    this  kind  of    criticism  ;  '* 

1  "  The  whole  difficult}'  as  to  the  propriety  of  saj'ing  '  had  rather,'  'had 
better,'  '  had  as  lief,'  etc.,  arises  from  regarding  had  as  an  '  auxiliary  verb,' 
m  the  common  acceptation  of  that  term.  In  a  certain  sense,  no  doubt,  it 
IS  an  auxiliary.  Dare,  in  the  sentence  'I  dare  do  it,'  and  is  mid,  in  the 
sentence  '  Hanno  is  said  to  have  reached  the  shores  of  Arabia, '  may  be 
called  auxiliary  verbs.  So  had,  when  used  in  the  forms  under  considera- 
tion, may  be  said  to  be  an  auxiliary  ;  that  is,  it  aids  in  complementing  th« 
Dhraseology  which  embodies  the  predicate  of  the  sentence."     (Page  62.) 

*  See  Words  and  their  Uses,  chapter  ix. 


430  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

meaning  the  {luxiliary  and  the  parsing  kind.  Ac- 
cording to  the  view  that  I  take  of  the  English  lan- 
guage, parsing  is  the  merest  superfluity,  either  as 
training  for  its  mastery  or  as  a  means  of  its  analytic 
study.  The  writer  in  the  "  Educational  Monthly  " 
seems  to  think  otherwise ;  and  he  does  battle  with 
antagonists  of  his  own  faith.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  of  them  he  makes  great  slaughter.  But  I  shall 
not  weep  over  their  remains.  Let  the  dead  in  gram- 
mar bury  their  dead.     It  is  "none  of  my  funeral." 

The  only  point  which  I  brought  forward  for  consid- 
eration (and  in  doing  so  I  spoke  rather  as  a  recorder 
of  doubts  that  were  making  themselves  felt  than  as 
an  opponent  of  one  form  or  the  advocate  of  another) 
was  whether,  in  the  phrases  in  question,  had  is  the 
best  word,  or,  if  you  please,  a  good  word,  the  right 
word,  to  convey  the  intended  meaning.  The  mean- 
ing of  a  word  is  determined  in  a  great  measure,  but 
not  absolutely  and  entirely,  by  precedent,  "  author- 
ity," usage.  And  as  to  "  had  better,"  "  had  rather," 
"had  as  lief,"  and  so  forth,  it  is  out  of  question  that 
this  use  of  had  has  the  sanction  of  long  usage,  not 
only  by  the  English-speaking  people  generally,  but 
by  some  of  their  greatest  and  most  careful  writers. 
It  is  therefore  not  at  all  surprising  that  my  "  Educa- 
tional "  opponent  should  say,  — 

"  Hence,  consistently  with  grammatical  principles,  as  well 
fts  with  long-established,  unquestioned  English  usage,  and 
ihat  too  of  the  best  and  most  careful  writers  in  the  language, 
we  hesitate  not  to  write  'had  rather  '  and  'had  better'  when- 
ever it  suits  our  purpose." 

Two  points,  however,  in  the  judgment  pronounced 
by  this  critic,  need  comment ;  in  one  case  very  brief. 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      431 

in  the  other  more  extended.  The  phraseology  is  said 
to  be  consistent  with  grammatical  principles.  Now, 
as  I  have  said  before,  with  what  are  called  gram- 
matical principles  in  the  English  language  I  profess 
to  have  no  concern  whatever  ;  and  therefore  whether 
any  construction  is  in  conformity  with  them  or  not  is, 
ad  hoc^  a  matter  that  I  cannot  rightfully  be  called 
upon  to  take  into  consideration. 

The  second  point  is  the  assertion  that  this  usage  is 
"  unquestioned,"  — an  assertion  which  seems  to  have 
been  too  thoughtlessly  made.  I  deny  it ;  and  to  the 
contrary  produce  not  only  a  score  of  such  letters  as 
that  cited  above  (although  they  are  evidence  of  some 
weight),  but  the  very  grammarians  whom  the  writer 
in  the  "  Educational  Monthly  "  feels  called  upon  to 
withstand,  together  with  a  writer  on  language  of  the 
learning  and  acumen  of  Archbishop  Trench,  and  an 
orator  of  the  high  repute  of  Wendell  Phillips,  both  of 
whom  this  very  writer  in  this  very  article  brings  for- 
ward for  castigation  because  of  what  is  a  deliberate 
avoidance  of  the  phraseology  "  had  better."  Mani- 
festly, therefore,  the  fact  is  directly  to  the  contrary 
of  this  writer's  too  inconsiderate  and  unqualified  as- 
sertion. The  phraseology  is  questioned.  It  is  now 
called  upon  to  pass  under  the  revision  of  what  I  have 
before  called  the  court  that  pronounces  judgment 
upon  language,  —  "a  mixed  commission  of  the  com- 
mon and  the  critical,  before  whom  precedent  and 
good  usage  have  presumptive  authority,  on  condition 
that  they  bear  the  test  of  criticism,  that  is,  of  reason." 
And  what  I  have  thus  far  done  is  little  more  than  to 
venture  the  prediction  that  the  verdict  of  that  court 
will  be  against  such  uses  of  words  as  had  rather  he 
and  had  better  go^  and  that  therefore  they  will  suffer 
gradual,  although  not  very  slow,  extinction. 


432  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

But  let  us  examine  the  passages  quoted  from  Arch- 
bishop Trench  and  Mr.  Phillips.  The  archbishop,  in 
his  book  on  "  Bible  Revision,"  wrote,  "  It  appears 
with  variations,  slight  indeed,  but  yet  which  would 
better  have  been  avoided."  Mr.  Phillips,  in  a  speech 
reported  February  21,  1866,  said,  "Governor  Par- 
sons said  he  would  like  a  million  of  dollars ;  and  the 
eloquent  apostle  said  he  thought  Massachusetts  could 
better  lend  it."  I  venture  without  hesitation  to  say 
that  in  both  these  instances  the  distinguished  gentle- 
men were  incorrect  in  their  phraseology.  The  prel- 
ate should  have  written,  "but  which  yet  might  better 
have  been  avoided ;  "  the  orator  should  have  said,  "  he 
thought  Massachusetts  might  better  lend  it."  But 
observe  that  in  both  cases,  as  far  as  "  would  better  " 
and  "  could  better  "  are  concerned,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion of  grammar.  As  far  as  mere  grammar  and  the 
requirements  of  "  parsing  "  go,  might,  could,  would^ 
and  should  suit  the  construction  equally.  The  error 
was,  in  the  one  case,  that  the  writer  used  would  when 
his  meaning  was  might,  and  in  the  other  that  the 
speaker  used  could  when  his  meaning  also  was  might. 
It  is  a  mere  question  of  the  meaning  of  words,  not  of 
syntax,  or  even  of  rhetoric. 

To  consider  this  question  of  the  meaning  of  the 
verbs  to  be  used  with  better  and  rather  and  the  like 
words :  let  us  first  take  an  example  quoted  in  the 
"Educational  Monthly's"  article  from  Boyd's  "Lei- 
sure Hours  :  "  "  The  most  meddlesome  of  tattling  old 
women  knows  when  she  may  venture  to  repeat  Mrs. 
Grundy's  opinion,  and  when  she  had  better  not." 
Here  it  is  said  that  "  had  better  not "  "  is  equivalent 
to  ought  not  or  should  not,"  and  that  "  neither  would^ 
aor  might,  nor  even  should  will  fill  the  place  of  had 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      433 

alone,"  and  express  tlie  meaning.  I  venture  to  say- 
that  this  decision  is  wrong.  Of  course,  neither  "  she 
would  better  not "  nor  "  she  should  better  not "  is  ad- 
missible. But  is  not  might  the  proper  correlative  of 
may  ;  and  as  we  should  say  "  when  she  may  venture 
to  speak  and  when  she  might  better  hold  her  tongue," 
so  would  it  not  be  proper  and  exactly  expressive  to  say 
"when  she  may  venture  to  repeat  Mrs.  Grunc]y's  opin- 
ion and  when  she  might  better  not  [repeat  it]  "  ?  The 
use  of  had  for  all  the  different  shades  of  meaning  in 
mighty  could,  would,  and  shotdd  seems  to  indicate  a  rude 
and  indiscriminating  manner  of  speech  ;  and  if  these 
various  meanings  could  not  be  expressed,  a  barbarous 
poverty  of  language  would  be  indicated,  or  at  least 
an  inflexibility  and  narrowness  akin  to  that  of  the 
Latin  use  of  amai'em  for  I  might  love  and  I  could 
love  and  /  would  love  and  I  should  love.^  But  see 
again  that  the  question  is  not  a  grammatical  one  ; 
not  one  of  syntax  or  even  of  rhetorical  construction, 
but  of  the  mere  meaning  of  the  word  that  is  to  be 
used.  The  error  is  of  precisely  the  same  sort  as  that 
in  the  sentence,  "  The  book  can  be  seen  by  any  per- 
son at  this  oflBce,"  which  I  find  in  a  journal  of  the 
highest  standing.  What  was  intended  to  be  expressed 
was  neither  the  ability  of  any  person  to  see  the  book, 
nor  the  visibility  of  the  book,  but  permission  to  any 
person  to  see  it.  The  writer  meant  to  say,  "  The 
book  may  be  seen  by  any  person,"  etc. 

And  now  as  to  the  meaning  of  had,  which  is  all 
with  which  I  have  any  direct  concern.  Its  "  gram- 
matical character,"  to  the  consideration  of  which  the 
writer  in  the  "  Educational.  Monthly  "  gives  so  much 
attention,  and  which  he  discusses  with  discrimination, 

1  See  Words  and  their  Uses,  page  312. 
88 


434  EVf:nY-DAY  English. 

if  not  with  correct  conclusion,  is  nothing  at  all  to  my 
purpc  se. 

Have,  of  wliich  had  is  the  preterite  form,  expresses 
simply  present  possession.  If  it  ever  implies  or  seems 
to  express  any  other  meaning,  that  is  only  in  virtue 
of  the  association  of  ideas,  or  by  figure  of  speech.  In 
the  sentence,  "  I  have  a  duty  to  perform,"  obligation 
is  expressed,  but  it  is  expressed  by  the  sentence  as  a 
vehole  ;  have  expresses  merely  present  possession.  It 
asserts  that  the  performance  of  a  duty  pertains  to, 
belongs  to,  the  speaker.  It  pertains  to  me  to  perform 
a  duty  —  it  belongs  to  me  to  perform  this  duty.  So 
in  the  sentence,  "  I  have  to  go  home,"  obligation  is 
expressed  ;  but  in  this  case,  as  in  the  other,  and  in  all 
others  of  a  like  construction,  have  expresses  simply 
present  possession.  Just  so  we  say,  merely  using  the 
possessive  pronoun  to  express  obligation,  "It  is  yours 
to  do  thus  or  so  ; "  that  is,  "  You  have  to  do  thus  or 
so."  And  so  the  Latin  form  of  "I  have  to  go"  is 
eundum  est  mihi.  To  signify  that  an  action  must 
be  done,  the  impersonal  gerund  is  combined  with  the 
dative  of  possession.  The  subject  of  the  obligation, 
that  is,  the  person  that  has  to  do  something,  is  ex- 
pressed by  the  dative  ;  and  that  the  dative  has  a 
possessive  force,  even  with  regard  to  material  objects, 
of  course  no  one  moderately  acquainted  with  Latin 
needs  to  be  reminded.  That  in  all  such  phrases  have, 
in  any  of  its  tenses,  expresses  simple  possession  at 
some  time  seems  too  clear  to  need  further  enforce- 
ment or  illustration.  And  so  in  the  sentence,  "  Deal 
with  others  as  you  would  have  others  deal  with  you  ' 
(which  is  another  of  those  examples  brought  for 
ward  as  illustrative  of  the  notion  that  have  expresses 
obligation    rather    than    possession),   have    expresses 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      435 

merely  present  possession,  although  in  combination 
with  would  it  implies  volition  as  to  present,  or  rather 
as  to  indefinite,  time.  It  can  have  no  other  meaning 
than  that  which  it  has  in  the  question,  "  How  would 
you  have  others  deal  with  you?"  which  seems  to 
be  just  the  same  that  it  has  in  the  tailor's  question, 
"  How  will  you  have  your  trousers  made  ? "  or  in 
Celia's  threat  to  Rosalind,  "  We  must  have  your 
doublet  and  hose  plucked  over  your  head." 

Consequently,  in  the  sentence,  "  I  have  had  this 
cold  for  more  than  a  week,"  which  is  brought  for- 
ward in  this  article  as  a  critical  crux  for  my  discom- 
fiture, had,  in  my  judgment,  can  express  only  past 
possession.  The  sentence  as  a  whole  expresses  both 
past  and  present  possession ;  but  had  expresses  only 
that  which  is  past.  "  I  had  this  cold  for  more  than 
a  week  "  would  express  the  possession  of  the  cold 
for  more  than  a  week  at  some  time  past.  "  I  have 
this  cold  "  would  express  possession  of  the  cold  at  the 
time  present,  and  we  cannot  add  "  for  more  than  a 
week,"  becavise  that  takes  in  time  past.  And  when 
we  wish  to  express  past  possession  and  present  pos- 
session ^^»e  combine  had  with  have^  and  say  "  I  have 
had." 

But  there  is  one  other  use  of  had  brought  forward 
by  the  critic  of  the  "Educational  Monthly,"  which 
cannot  be  passed  over.  He  cites  Cowper's  line  ad- 
dressed to  his  mother's  portrait :  — 

"  Oh,  that  those  lips  had  language !  " 

and  also  the  sentence,  "I  wish  I  had  his  oppoi'tuni- 
ties ;  "  to  which  I  volunteer  to  acid  another  of  the 
same  sort,  "  If  I  had  him  here,  it  were  better."  It  is 
adroitly  put  that  "  Cowper  of  course  means,  '  Would 


436  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH, 

that  they  now  had  language,  and  could  speak  to  me  I ' 
Had  does  not  express  a  perfected  or  even  a  past  pos- 
session, for  the  lips  referred  to  never  had  spoken.  It 
merely  assumes  a  present  non-possession,  and  helps 
to  express  the  wish  that  the  power  of  speech  were 
possessed." 

At  the  first  blush  it  does  seem  that  this  construc- 
tion (and  this  only  of  all  that  are  jDroduced  or  that 
have  occurred  to  me)  shows  that  my  assertion  that 
had  always  expresses  perfected  or  past  possession  was 
too  sweeping.  But  let  us  examine  the  construction. 
In  all  these  sentences  had  is  put  in  the  stead  of  might 
have,  could  have  :  "  Oh,  that  those  lips  might  have  lan- 
guage !  "  "I  wish  I  could  have  his  opportunities  ;  " 
and  this  construction  is  merely  the  use,  the  idiomatic 
use,  of  (in  grammar  phrase)  the  imperfect  subjunc- 
tive for  the  imperfect  potential.  So  in  the  third 
sentence,  "  If  I  had  him  here,  it  were  better,"  the 
same  idiomatic  conversion  has  taken  place  in  both 
verbs  ;  and  the  sentence  in  its  normal  form  is,  "  If 
I  could  have  him  here,  it  would  be  better."  This 
Bubstitution  is  formally  recognized  by  the  gramma- 
rians as  idiomatic  in  regard  to  had  and  were.  (See 
Lindley  Murray,  Etymology,  sec.  7,  vol.  i.,  p.  146, 
ed.  1824.)  Whether  it  is  directly  traceable  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  use  of  hcefed  for  had  or  might  have,  and 
of  wcere  for  were  or  would  be,  I  shall  not  undertake 
to  say.  But  that  the  usage  is  not  at  all  dependent 
upon  a  sense  of  obligation  conveyed  by  this  use  of 
had  (the  explanation  of  the  writer  in  the  "  Educa- 
tional Monthly  ")  is  very  clear  from  the  fact  that 
the  same  use  of  the  preterite  obtains  in  almost  all,  if 
uot  all,  verbs.  For  example :  "  He  could  not  do  it  if 
he  tried ;''''  that  is,  if  he  should  try,  etc.     "  I  would 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      437 

break  with  him  if  it  broke  ray  heart ;  "  that  is,  if 
t  should  break  my  heart.  "  She  would  not  Hsten, 
charmed  he  never  so  wisely  ;  "  that  is,  should  he 
charm,  etc.     The  idiom  is  exactly  the  same  as  in 

"•  .  .  .  had  he  a  thousand  lives, 
What  were  ten  thousand  to  a  wrong  like  mine?" 

Milton  pushed  this  idiom  to  the  extreme,  writing,  in 
the  "  Areopagitica,"  "  And  he  who  ivere  pleasantly 
disposed  could  not  well  avoid  to  lik'n  it,"  etc. ;  that 
is,  he  who  should  be  pleasantly  disposed  could  not, 
etc. 

But  such  sentences  as  "  I  had  rather  be  a  door- 
keeper in  the  house  of  my  God,"  etc.,  and  "  I  had 
rather  be  right  than  President,"  cannot  be  thus  re- 
solved. For  "  I  would  have  rather  be  a  door-keeper,'* 
etc.,  "  I  would  have  rather  be  right,"  etc.,  are  incon- 
gruous, aud  at  variance  with  reason.  The  incongru- 
ity of  "  I  had  rather  be,"  etc.,  is  that  of  the  combina- 
tion of  the  sign  of  past  time  with  that  of  present 
time,  —  had  be,  —  which  is  shown  by  the  obvious 
congruity  of  the  combination  of  had  with  the  sign  of 
past  time,  been  ;  for  to  "  I  had  rather  been  a  door- 
keeper,"  etc.,  "  I  had  rather  been  right,"  etc.,  there 
is  no  logical  objection.  These  may  properly  be  sub- 
stituted for  "  I  would  have  rather  been  a  door-keeper," 
etc.,  "  I  would  have  rather  been  right,"  etc.  The 
pestion  as  to  which  form  shall  be  preferred  is  one 
loerely  of  taste  and  usage.  In  these  sentences  the 
word  rather,  meaning  only  sooner,  may  confuse  and 
mislead  some  readers,  although  it  is  merely  a  modi- 
fier of  had,  and  has  no  formative  function  in  the  sen- 
tence. The  incongruous  and  anomalous  position  of 
had  in  these  sentences  may  be  seen  by  considering 
the  expression  of  exactly  the  same  thought  by  the 


i38  EVERY-DAY    F.XGUSH. 

use  of  would  and  the  transposition  of  rather.  "  I 
would  be  a  door-keeper  in  the  house  of  thy  God  rather 
than  dwell  in  the  tents  of  the  ungodly,"  "  I  would 
be  right  rather  than  be  President,  "  are  sense  and 
English  ;  but  "  I  had  be  a  doorkeeper,  etc.,  rather 
than  dwell"  and  "I  had  be  right  rather  than  be 
President  "  are  nonsense. 

We  may  now  consider  the  following  couplet  from 
*'  Marmion,"  which  is  brought  forwai-d  as  "  present- 
ing an  instance  of  the  correct  use  of  had  rather  :  "  — 

"  You  shall  wish  the  fiery  Dane 
Had  rather  been  your  guest  again." 

Upon  this  there  is  the  following  comment ;  — 

"  Here  had,  of  course,  is  equivalent  to  might  have.  But 
had  the  poet,  under  the  idea  that  had  rather  should  be  would 
rather,  written,  — 

'  You  shall  wish  the  fiery  Dane 
Would  rather  been  3'our  guest  again,' 

what  '  a  logical  and  self-consistent  phraseology  '  we  should 
have  had  in  '  would  rather  heen ' !  But  we  are  thankful  that 
Sir  Walter's  instincts  were  more  trustworthy  than  some 
people's  generalizations  are." 

This  is  very  sad  business.  It  might  first  be  sug- 
gested that  Sir  Walter's  instincts  as  to  the  use  of 
language  were  not  always  trustwortliy ;  he,  although 
standing  next  to  Shakespeare  in  imaginative  genius, 
being  one  of  the  most  incorrect  among  the  distin- 
guished writers  of  our  language.  And  then  it  might 
ilso  be  suggested  that  in  this  instance  he  was  quite 
right,  and  that  this  example  is  a  correct  use  of  had 
rather,  in  which  had  doubtless  is  equivalent  to  might 
have.  And  therefore,  of  course,  we  may  be  sure 
that  some  people  cannot  avoid  asking  whether,  if 
Bir  Walter's  instincts  had   led   him   to  write  "  had 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      439 

rather  he  your  guest  again,"  that  is,  "  might  have 
rather  he  your  guest  again,"  those  instincts  would 
still  have  been  more  trustworthy  than  some  people's 
generalizations  are.  Plainly,  Scott  in  this  passage 
was  quite  right.  There  is  no  better  English  than 
had  been ;  and  it  is  as  logical  and  congruous  as  had 
he  is  illogical  and  incongruous. 

Here,  however,  we  seem  to  have  unearthed  the 
origin  of  the  illogical  form  which  has  its  t^^pe  in  1 
had  rather  he.  It  is  the  peiwersion  of  an  idiom,  —  the 
mistaken,  or,  as  we  sometimes  saj^  the  slipshod  use 
of  the  form  expressive  of  past  time  (the  imperfect 
tense)  in  combination  with  that  expressing  present 
time  ;  the  proper  use  of  had  with  heen  or  spoke,  and 
the  like,  having  led  to  a  thoughtless  and  incorrect  use 
of  it  with  he  or  speak,  and  the  like  ;  and  the  only  ob- 
jection made  by  me  to  the  use  of  T  had  rather  he, 
that  is,  that  had  expresses  perfect  and  past  posses- 
sion, seems  to  be  sustained. 

As  a  further  illustration  of  the  law  of  this  con- 
struction, let  us  consider  another  example.  A  lady 
said,  "  The  floor  had  better  be  bai-e  than  have  that 
carpet ;  indeed,  I  don't  know  but  it  had  best  be  bare, 
any  way."  This  is  one  of  the  cases  in  which  we  are 
told  by  the  advocate  of  had  rather  he  that  had  ex- 
presses obligation.  It  may  be  admitted,  at  least  for 
the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  in  these  cases  the 
whole  sentence  does  express  a  sort  of  obligation. 
But  the  point  is  the  meaning,  not  of  the  sentence, 
but  of  had.  If  had  expresses  obligation  with  the 
comparative  and  the  superlative,  it  should  express 
he  same  with  the  positive ;  and  we  should  s-aj,  "  The 
door  had  well  be  bare,"  which  we  do  not  say,  nor 
even,  "  The  floor  had  as  well  be  bare."     But  we  may 


4:40  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

and  do  say,  "  The  iloor  might  well,  or  might  better, 
or  might  best,  be  bare."  So  we  may  consistently 
and  logically  say,  "  The  floor  had  [or  might  have] 
best  been  bare,  or  had  [or  might  have]  better  been 
bare,  or  had  [or  might  have]  as  well  been  bare.'* 
Thus,  again,  we  find  that  had  does  not  express  a 
wish  or  willingness  or  an  obligation,  but  merely  past 
possession  ;  and  that  even  in  its  idiomatic  substitu- 
tion for  could,  would,  or  might  have,  like  that  of  were 
for  could,  would,  or  might  be,  its  "  preterite"  or  past 
signification  must  not  be  lost  sight  of. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  the  advocates  of 
had  rather  place  themselves  in  a  position  which  in- 
volves the  defense  of  that  peculiar  locution  which  is 
most  frequently  heard  in  the  form  hadn^t  oughter. 
For  example,  in  the  article  under  consideration,  this 
sentence  is  cited  with  approval  by  way  of  illustra- 
tion :  "  A  lesson  which  requires  so  much  time  to 
learn  had  need  be  early  begun  with."  This,  we  are 
told,  is  from  a  book  called  "  The  Government  of  the 
Tongue;"  but  it  need  hardly  be  said  to  any  reader 
who  will  consider  the  sentence  for  a  moment,  that 
the  tongue  concerning  whose  government  the  author 
writes  is  not  the  English  tongue.  An  intelligible 
sentence  less  worthy  of  imitation  could  hardly  be 
produced.  The  verbs  in  it  and  the  preposition  are 
in  a  very  unhappy  state  of  bereavement.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  what  is  the  object  of  either  "  requires  "  or 
"  learn,"  or  what  function  "  Avith  "  performs  in  the 
expression  of  the  author's  thought.  However  forlorn 
of  grammar,  no  one  who  is  not  bereft  of  comraon- 
«ense  can  avoid  seeing  that  the  correct  form  of  the 
sentence  (assuming  that  the  writer's  words  are  to  be 
ased)  would  be :  "A  lesson  which  it  requires  so  mucli 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      441 

time  to  learn  [or  which  requires  so  much  time  to 
learn  it]  has  need  to  be  early  begun  [or  to  be  begun 
early]."  We  can  put  up  ivith  bad  conduct  or  hear 
with  a  wayward  friend,  and  in  going  through  a  course 
of  study  we  can  begin  with  a  certain  lesson.  But 
after  we  have  said  that  a  certain  lesson  has  need  to 
be  early  begun,  it  is  difficult  to  discover  any  other 
consequence  than  confusion  from  the  addition  of  ivith 
to  begun,  —  as  difficult  as  to  discover  what  is  the  func- 
tion of  got  in  the  sentence,  "  I  have  got  a  dollar  in 
my  pocket,"  or  what  that  assertion  means  more  than 
"  I  have  a  dollar  in  my  pocket." 

To  return  to  the  particular  point  in  question  :  in 
the  phrase  "  had  need  to  be  early  begun  with,"  need 
means  merely  ought.  For  example,  we  may  say, 
with  the  same  meaning,  that  such  a  lesson  needs  to 
be  begun  early,  or  that  it  ought  to  be  begun  early. 
But  those  who  most  affect  tlie  use  of  had  in  such 
constructions  would  say  that  it  "  had  ought  to  be 
begun  early,"  unless,  indeed,  they  were  of  the  opin- 
ion that  it  did  not  need  such  early  attention,  when 
they  would  probably  say  that  it  "  had  n't  oughter." 
Indeed,  this  very  critic  tells  us  that  "  need  here  is  an 
adverb  corresponding  to  better  in  the  foregoing  exam- 
ples," that  is,  "  had  better,"  etc.  This  being  the 
case,  if  we  may  turn  the  verb  need  into  an  adverb, 
and  say  "  had  need,"  we  may  surely  do  the  same 
with  the  verb  ought,  and  say  "  had  ought "  or  "  had  n't 
ought."  Those  who  do  so  will  doubtless  be  grateful 
for  this  grammatical  defense  of  the  locution  which 
they  so  much  affect.  It  may  be  questioned,  however, 
A'hether  there  is  any  more  reasonable  ground  of  de- 
fense of  hadnH  ought  to  be  than  there  is  of  had 
rather  be  and  had  better  be,  of  which  it  is  the  wor- 
thy, if  not  the  legitimate,  offspring. 


442  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

In  regard  to  the  point  of  usage,  which  is  so  much 
insisted  upon  and  of  which  so  much  is  made,  it  is 
proper  to  add  that  "  I  had  better,"  etc.,  has  not  only 
been  questioned  by  men  like  Archbishop  Trench  and 
Mr.  Wendell  Phillips,  but  doubted  and  shunned  by 
the  Elizabethan  writers,  who  generally  avoided  what 
their  fine  intuitions  of  speech  taught  them  was  not  a 
clear  and  forcible  expression,  and  used  instead  of  it 
"  I  were,"  "  you  were,"  etc.  The  dramatists  are  full 
of  examples  like  the  following  :  — 

"  ....  If  it  be  so,  as  'tis, 
Poor  lady,  she  were  better  love  a  dream." 

(Shakespeare,  Twelfth  Night,  ii.  2.) 
"  I  would  kiss  before  I  spoke. 
Nay,  you  were  better  speak  first,  and  when,"  etc. 

(As  You  Like  It,  iv.  1.) 
*•  And  we  were  better  parch  in  Afric  sun 
Than  in  the  pride  and  salt  scorn  of  his  eyes." 

(Troihis  and  Cressida,  i.  3.) 
"  Give  them  their  weapons.  —  Sirs,  you  're  best  be  gone." 

(Middleton,  Honest  Whore,  iv.  3.) 
"  Why,  you  Ve  best  go  see." 

(The  same,  v.  1.) 
' '  I  will  not  say 
"Your  mother  play'd  false. 

No,  sir,  you  were  not  best." 

(The  Widow,  i.  2.) 
'  Look  to  yourself,  housewife !  answer  me  in  strong  lines,  you  were  best.*' 
(Ford,  The  Lover's  Melancholy,  iii.  1.) 
"  You  were  best  assault  me,  too ! 
You  were  best  call  him  a  bastard,  too." 

(Shirley,  Gentleman  of  Venice,  i.  1.) 
"  I  were  best  deliver  up  my  cold  iron  here." 

(Honoria  and  Mammon,  i.  1.) 

My  memorandums  of  such  passages  are  number 
less ;  and  I  believe  that  on  the  other  hand  "  I  had  ' 
is  comparatively  rare  with  the  Elizabethan  writers 
»— a  fact  certainly  of  much  significance. 


DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,   OLD   AND   NEW.  448 

EMPLOYEE. 

New  York,  March  25,  1873. 
Sir,  —  During  the  publication  of  "  Words  and  their 
Uses  "  in  "  The  Galaxy  "  I  looked  for  something  about  the 
French  word  employee,  which  has  come  so  much  in  vogue 
here  of  later  years.  I  hoped  to  find  an  opinion  upon  it,  if 
not  in  the  chapter  upon  "Words  that  are  not  Words,"  at 
least  in  that  upon  "  Misused  Words  ;  "  but  in  vain.  Will 
you  have  the  kindness  to  give  me  your  judgment  as  to  the 
propriety  and  need  of  the  new  usage,  and  much  oblige, 

F.  A.  H. 

This  correspondent  tempts  me  to  the  expression  of 
personal  preference,  to  which  I  fear  that  I  have 
already  manifested  too  strong  an  inclination,  even  in 
discnssions  of  language  which  were  avowed  to  be 
chiefly  on  the  grounds  of  taste,  judgment,  and  rea- 
son. I  confess  at  the  outset  that  I  am  prejudiced  by 
a  strong  feeling  against  this  word.  The  introduction 
of  employee  is  the  sign  and  fruit  of  a  foolish  and 
"snobbish"  dislike  to  the  word  servant;  a  simple 
and  honest  word,  which,  with  all  that  it  implies,  I 
like.  Peter  avows  himself  the  servant  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ ;  a  British  oflBcer  is  proud  to  say  that  he 
serves  her  Majesty ;  companies  of  actors,  of  whom 
Williani  Shakespeare  and  John  Philip  Kemble  were 
members,  were  his  Majesty's  servants.  The  servants 
of  a  household  seem  to  me  to  hold  a  place  in  it 
which  is  perfectly  respectable,  and  which  only  their 
own  conduct  can  degrade  ;  I  myself  was  for  many 
jrears  a  servant  of  the  United  States,  and  I  hope  that 
no  one  will  ever  call  me  an  employee.  I  cannot  see 
why  those  who  serve  a  railway  company,  or  a  hospi- 
tal, or  any  corporate  body,  mercantile  firm,  or  indi 


J44  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

vidual,  should  not  be  called  its  or  his  servants.  But 
it  is  to  be  said  tliat  employee  has  a  claim  to  a  place 
among  a  goodly  family  of  words:  nominee,  one  who 
is  nominated ;  payee,  one  who  is  paid  ;  mortgagee, 
grantee,  trustee,  referee,  patentee,  devotee,  etc. ;  and 
so  employee,  one  who  is  employed.  Then  let  those 
who  prefer,  and  who  use  it,  recognize  it  boldly  as  an 
English  word,  which  they  may  do  with  perfect  pro- 
priety, and  call  their  servants  or  themselves  (if,  being 
servants,  they  do  not  wish  to  be  so  called)  employees, 
and  not  vex  their  souls  and  their  vocal  organs,  to- 
gether with  the  ears  of  their  hearers,  by  writing  em- 
ploySs,   and  talking  of  omploy-yays. 

YOU  WAS. 
Court  Street,  Boston,  March  28,  1873. 
Dear  Sir,  —  The  expression  "  if  I  was  you,"  or  "  if  you 
[singular]  was,"  etc.,  is  very  much  in  vogue  among  the  more 
cultivated  of  our  people.  Is  there  any  authority,  or  at  least 
authority  of  any  weight,  to  support  the  use  of  the  singular 
form  of  the  verb  in  such  cases  ?  Pardon  me  for  obtruding 
such  a  question  upon  you  [etc.,  etc.]. 

Vei-y  truly,  G.  L.  H. 

The  two  cases  presented  here  are  not  at  all  alike. 
In  the  first,  "  if  I  was  you,"  the  verb  "  was  "  belongs 
to  "I;"  there  can  therefore  be  no  objection  to  the 
''  singular  form."  The  only  question  as  to  this  case 
is  whether  it  should  not  be  "  if  I  wei-e  you ;  "  to 
which  the  answer  is  that  even  among  educated  people 
and  careful  writers  and  speakers  the  "subjunctive" 
form  is  passing  out  of  favor  and  out  of  use.  In  this 
case,  however,  I  should  personally  much  prefer  "  if  I 
were  you."     In  the  second  case  the  verb  belongs  to 

you,"  which  has  long  been  the  pronoun  of  the  second 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      445 

person  singular,  as  much  so  as  I  is  the  pronoun  of 
the  first ;  and  the  apparent  incongruity  here  is  in  the 
use  of  the  pronoun  of  the  second  person  with  the  verb 
of  the  first  and  third,  "  if  you  was  "  instead  of  "  if 
thou  wast  or  wert." 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  phenomenons  in  the 
history  of  language  is  the  substitution,  centuries  ago, 
in  the  western  tongues,  of  the  pronoun  of  the  second 
person  plural  for  that  of  the  second  person  singular, 
which  has  obtained  in  English,  more  or  less,  for  five 
hundred  years.  This  appears  to  have  been  caused  by 
the  operation  of  an  inexplicable  sense  of  discourtesy 
in  the  use  of  thou,  or  rather  in  the  use  of  the  second 
person  at  all.  In  the  generation  before  the  last  it 
was  customary  in  families  of  the  strictest  and  most 
thorough  breeding  for  the  children  never  to  address 
their  parents  as  "  you,"  but  to  say,  for  instance,  "  Does 
father  think  thus?"  "Will  mother  do  so?"  The 
awful  mystery  of  the  etiquette  of  su  and  usted  is  one 
of  the  first  difficulties  the  learner  of  Spanish  has  to 
encounter.  And  one  cannot  open  the  first  pages  of 
Shakespeare  without  encountering  this  problem.  In 
the  long  dialogue  in  the  second  scene  of  the  "  Tem- 
pest," Miranda  always  uses  you  in  speaking  to  her 
father;  he  always  tliou  in  speaking  to  her.  Ariel, 
as  a  supernatural  being,  addresses  Prospero  as  thou. 
When  Ferdinand  enters,  Prospero  immediately,  and 
always  when  speaking  harshly,  thous  him  ;  but  in 
one  speech,  in  which  he  addresses  him  kindly,  and 
with  a  recognition  of  the  young  man's  rank,  he  uses 
you.  The  use  of  thou  plainly  implied  an  assertion 
of  superiority. 

T^^'hen  the  change  from  thou  to  you  in  ordinary 
conversation   was  made,  and  in   place  of  thou  wast 


t46  EVERY-DAY    ENdLISII. 

came  you  were.,  the  plural  pronoun  took  with  it  the 
plural  form  of  the  verb  ;  which  seems,  moreover,  to 
have  been  welcomed  for  its  own  sake,  because  it  rid 
us  of  wast  and  wert.  For  in  cases  in  which  thou  was 
permissible,  and  indeed  was  on  the  lips  of  a  speaker 
or  the  pen  of  a  writer,  we  find  in  the  same  sentence 
a  change  to  you,  which  seems  plainly  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  ease  from  the  formal  and  ponderous  thou 
wast  and  thoii  wert.  And  now  the  very  frequent  use 
of  you  was  among  people  of  education  has  the  air  of  a 
movement  toward  making  was.,  throughout  that  tense, 
the  singular  form  of  the  verb,  as  were  is  the  plural. 
The  old  second  person  singular  is  gone  forever,  al- 
though its  lifeless  form  is  embalmed  in  the  Hebra- 
ism of  prayer,  and  in  poetry,  which  always  affects 
archaism.  It  is  dangerous  to  assert  a  general  nega- 
tive ;  but  I  should  hardly  hesitate  to  say  that  there 
cannot  be  produced  an  instance  of  its  use  in  prose 
within  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  that  is,  for  five 
generations,  except  with  the  obvious  consciousness  of 
the  reproduction  of  an  archaic  form.  "  Thou  lovest " 
is  as  dead  as  "  thou  hast  holpen,"  that  is,  "  you  have 
helped." 

As  to  the  question  between  you  was  and  you  were 
(singular)  used  indicatively,  it  seems  to  me  hardly 
debatable  ;  for  the  purpose  of  using  you  is  not  at- 
tained if  the  plural  form  of  the  verb  does  not  accom- 
pany the  pronoun.  But  you  was  has  the  support  of 
eminent  example  ;  that,  for  instance,  of  so  careful  and 
finished  a  writer  as  Sterne,  who  uses  it  frequently. 
Nor  is  it  uncommon  with  other  English  writers  of 
equal  grade. 


DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,   OLD   AND   NEW.  447 


A  BUNDLE   OF   QUEELEB. 
207  East  82d  Street,  New  Yoek,  September  29,  1873. 

Dear  Sir,  —  You  are  doing  a  good  work,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 
[My  correspondents  will  pardon  my  omission  of  their  kind 
and  encouraging  remarks,  and  also  the  suppression  of  the 
names  of  the  authors  of  some  of  the  examples  of  bad  Eng- 
lish sent  for  correction.]  I  would  ask  you,  Can  nothing  be 
done  to  get  rid  of  that  barbarism  of  speech  which  has  lately 
come  into  vogue,  introduced  by  our  American  journalists,  of 
placing  the  adverb  between  the  sign  of  the  infinitive  mood 
and  the  verb  ?  —  as,  "  She  is  learning  to  elegantly  dance," 
instead  of  to  dance  elegantly  ;  "  I  hope  to  soon  recover  my 
health  ; "  "I  propose  to  to-morrow  return  home  ; "  "  For 
the  benefit  of  my  health  I  have  resolved  to  four  miles  walk 
every  day  ;  "  "I  am  unable  to  fully  understand  you."  This 
collocation  is  grossly  unclassical,  not  being  found  in  any 
Btandard  author  of  any  age.  I  can  see  nothing  gained  by  it 
but  the  gratification  of  disgusting  pedantic  pride,  or  a  mali- 
cious pleasure  in  torturing  cultivated  ears. 

Will  you  tell  me  whether  to  say  on  or  between  the  horns 
of  a  dileruma,  and  why  ?  Also  the  origin  of  the  Latin 
phrase,  cum  grano  sails  ? 

Many  good  American  writers  confound  at  fault  and  in 

fault.     I  noticed  the  other  day  that does.     At 

fault  is  a  huntsman's  phrase.  The  hounds  are  said  to  be  at 
fault  when  they  have  lost  scent  of  the  game,  and  are  running 
hither  and  thither  to  find  it.  In  fault  signifies  in  error;  at 
fault,  in  perplexity. 

Permit  me  also  to  ask  how  long  we  are  to  use  daily  a  class 
of  foreign  words  before  incorporating  them  and  anglicizing 
the  pronunciation  ?  Take  the  French  word  debut,  for  in- 
stance ;  not  one  American  in  five  hundred  can  pronounce  it 
correctly.     The  u  he  sounds  like  oo. 

The  French,  when  they  adopt  a  foreign  word,  gallicize  it 
M  once;  they  make  the  pronunciation  bend  to  their  own 


448  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

laws.  The  Spaniards  say  Gil  Bias;  but  final  s  is  silent  in 
French ;  the  French  therefore  say  Gil  Bin  (a  broad).  The 
French  language  stands  on  its  dignity  ;  our  vernacular  has 
no  dignity  to  stand  on,  so  it  crouches.  Is  it  always  to  be  a 
parasite  ?  Why  don't  we  say  dehutt  f  Because,  if  we  did^ 
we  should  laugh  at  one  another.  We  don't  laugh  when  we 
say  deboo,  for  the  sufficient  reason  that  we  don't  know  that 
we  are  speaking  bad  French. 

Yours  respectfully,  D.  R.  T. 

The  foregoing  letter  is  a  specimen,  although  its 
g:;od  sense  and  good  taste  prevent  its  being  a  fair 
specimen,  of  the  many  received  by  the  writer  of  these 
chapters ;  not  one  in  a  hundred  of  his  correspondents 
being  a  person  with  whom  he  has  any  acquaintance, 
even  by  way  of  previous  correspondence. 

D.  R.  T.  gives  information  as  well  as  asks  it.  He 
is  so  clearly  right  about  the  placing  of  the  adverb  as 
to  make  comment  unnecessary.  The  examples  which 
he  gives  are  in  themselves  a  condemnation  of  the 
fashion  which  he  regards  with  such  disfavor.  Distin- 
guished precedent  miglit  be  shown  for  this  construc- 
tion, as  for  many  other  bad  uses  of  language ;  but  it 
is  eminently  un-English.^ 

As  to  a  dilemma,  the  proper  word  of  relation  is  be- 
tween ;  because  a  dilemma — SiA7;/x/xa,  meaning  two 
inclosing  positions  —  presents  to  a  disputant  two 
unpleasant  alternatives,  called  horns,  of  which  he  is 
obliged  to  accept  one.  When  the  dilemma  is  pre- 
Bented  he  is  upon  neither  horn ;  and  he  never  is  upon 
both. 

Cum  grano  salts  has  its  point  from  a  sort  ot  puu 

1  As  the  proof  of  this  page  is  passing  through  my  hands,  I  receive  a  let> 
ter  in  which  the  writer  says,  "As  I  have  been  unable  to  satisfactorily  ia 
form  myself,"  etc.  If  he  had  written  "to  inform  myself  satisfactorily' 
%is  English  would  have  been  better. 


DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,    OLD   AND   NEW.  449 

which  is  lost  in  the  translation,  —  "  with  a  grain  of 
salt."  Sal  has  for  its  secondary  meaning  wit,  men- 
tal acumen,  intellectual  good  taste  and  judgment; 
and  so,  to  take  a  thing  cum  grano  sails  is  to  use  cau- 
tion and  discrimination  in  giving  it  credence  or  con- 
sideration. 

As  regards  foreign  words  adopted  by  us,  whether 
French,  Latin,  Greek,  or  what  not,  their  complete 
naturalization  is  of  course  to  be  effected  only  by  time, 
and  by  frequent  and  general  usage  ;  and  the  question 
as  to  when  this  has  been  accomplished  is  also  of  course 
to  be  determined  only  by  observation.  The  usage 
with  regard  to  the  plural  is  a  good  guide.  For  ex- 
ample, index  is  an  unmodified  Latin  word,  of  which 
the  plural  is  indices^  which  was  formerly  used.  But 
no  one  would  now  say  indices,  except  when  using  the 
word  in  a  scientific  way.  Of  memorandum,  the  Latin 
plural  memoranda  is  used  by  some,  the  English  metn- 
orandums  by  others,  showing,  as  matter  of  history,  a 
yet  imperfect  naturalization  of  the  word ;  and  crite- 
rion has  generally  criteria  as  its  plural ;  for  which  I 
can  see  no  sufficient  reason.  It  would  seem  to  be  a 
sensible  and,  to  use  my  corresiDondent's  expression,  a 
dignified  way  to  naturalize  such  words  completely  as 
soon  as  possible.  Nevertheless,  he  would  be  a  bold 
man  who  should  speak  of  an  actress's  debutt,  and  of 
her  dehutting.  It  may  be  doubted,  however,  whether, 
if  he  could  not  say  d4but  (dayhue),  he  might  not  bet- 
ter say  dehutt  than  deboo. 

UP  AND  DOWN,  ABOVE  AND  BELOW. 

The  question  is  asked  whether  it  is  right  to  say 
that  a  thing  is  up  stairs  or  that  it  is  above  stairs, 
that  it  is  down  stairs  or  that  it  is  below  stairs.     The 


450  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

meaning  of  the  words  and  the  best  usage  require  the 
latter  form  in  both  cases.  We  go  up  stairs  to  get 
something  that  is  above  stairs,  and  down  stairs  to  get 
something  that  h  below  stairs.  We  go  up  a  hill  and 
down  a  hill ;  but  a  house  is  upon  a  hill  or  below  a 
hill.  And  yet,  although  we  go  up  town  or  down 
town,  a  friend  may  live  up  town  or  down  town.  But 
in  the  latter  cases  it  will  be  observed  that  wp  and 
down  do  not  express  a  relation  as  to  position  in  the 
town,  but  to  ourselves  or  to  some  other  object.  It 
is  diflBcult  to  express  the  difference  in  the  shade  of 
meaning,  which  is  yet  very  distinct ;  for  although 
above  and  helow  always  imply  fixed  position,  up  and 
down  do  not  always  imply  motion  ;  as  in  the  nursery 
rhyme  about  the  star,  — 

"  Up  above  the  world  so  high, 
Like  a  diamond  in  the  skj''," 

and  in  "  down  below  the  middle  earth."  These  four 
words  are  called  adverbs  by  the  grammarians  and 
lexicographers,  but  also  pi-epositions;  a  variable  clas- 
sification, which  shows  the  difficulty  and  uncertainty 
of  such  a  system  of  nomenclature.  As  to  usage,  the 
best  is  exemplified  in  the  title  of  the  old  comedj^ 
*'  High  Life  helow  Stairs,"  and  in  this  sentence  from 
Fielding:  "Those  orders  I  gave  in  no  very  low  voice, 
BO  that  those  above  stairs  might  possibly  conceive," 
etc.  Failure  to  perceive  the  distinction  in  meaning, 
or  an  indifference  to  it,  is,  however,  bringing  "  up 
gtairs  "  and  "down  stairs"  as  expressive  of  position 
into  very  general  use. 

"  DIFFER   WITH  "   AND   "  DIFFER  FROM." 

My  attention  has  been  called  to  a  discussion  as  to 
the  comparative  propi'iety  of  these  two  phrases,  in 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      451 

wliich  the  question  was  finally  submitted  to  Cbancelloi* 
A.  R.  Benton,  who,  in  a  published  letter  upon  the 
subject,  decides  that  both  are  proper  ;  "  differ  from  " 
when  mere  divergence  is  intended  to  be  expressed, 
"  differ  with  "  when  mere  negation  or  disagreement. 
The  question  is  something  like  that  in  regard  to 
"different  from"  and  "different  to,"  and  turns,  of 
course,  as  Chancellor  Benton  remarks,  upon  the  mean- 
ing of  the  particle  dis,  from  which  the  s  has  fallen 
away,  and  which,  as  it  denotes  separation,  requires 
from  after  it.^  There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  ex- 
amples, "  Agassiz  differed  from  Darwin  upon  the  the- 
ory of  development,"  "  One  star  differeth  from  another 
star  in  glory."  The  question  is  not  as  to  "  differ 
from,"  but  as  to  "  differ  with,"  and  whether  it  is  ad- 
missible, and  if  so,  when  and  on  what  grounds.  There 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  admissible,  but  not 
as  an  alternative  with  "  differ  from.''''  It  has  quite 
a  different  meaning;  more,  I  venture  to  think,  than 
Chancellor  Benton's  mere  negation  or  disagreement. 
To  say  that  one  star  differs  with  another  star  in  glory 
would  be  inadmissible,  not  English.  "  Differ  from  " 
is  used  to  express  mere  unlikeness,  divergence,  in 
things  both  animate  and  inanimate  ;  "  differ  with  "  to 
express  the  action  of  intelligent  beings,  —  the  expres- 
sion of  a  difference ;  with  implying  the  presence,  or 
the  constructive  presence,  of  two  differing  or  disagree- 
ing parties.  A  man  may  differ  from  another  man  in 
tpinion,  without  differing  with  him.  For  one  may 
never  have  heard  of  the  other's  opinion,  from  which  he 

1  The  chancellor  says  that  he  had  hoped  to  find  in  Words  and  their 
Uses  a  discussion  of  this  word,  but  that  he  had  failed  to  do  so.  I  hope 
that  no  one  expects  to  fiul  in  that  book  a  discussion  of  all  the  bad  or 
nncertain  phrases  which  are  spoken  as  English.  The  book  contains  only 
'our  hundred  and  fifty  pages 


452  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

yet  differs  ;  or,  hearing  it,  he  may  hold  his  peace  about 
his  own  difference.  But  if  he  disputes  the  other's 
opinion,  particularly  if  he  does  so  in  his  presence,  he 
differs  with  him.  Thus  Hazlitt,  describing  a  com- 
monplace critic,  says  :  "  He  is  a  person  who  thinks  by 
proxy,  and  talks  by  rote.  He  differs  with  you,  net 
because  he  thinks  you  in  the  wrong,  but  because  he 
thinks  somebody  else  will  think  so."  And  so  we  say 
that  a  man  had  a  difference  with  another,  meaning  a 
dispute  with  him.  For  example;  "  This  part  of  the 
matter  is  chiefly  worth  notice  because  it  illustrates  the 
blind  precipitation  with  which  Mr.  Gladstone  swal- 
lows and  repeats  any  accusation  against  those  who 
have  the  good  or  bad  fortune  to  differ  with  him  po- 
litically." (^Saturday  Hevieio,  February  21,  1880.) 
We  should  never  think  of  saying  that  he  had  a  dif- 
ference from  him  ;  nor  should  we  say  that  he  had  a 
difference  with  him,  unless  his  difference  of  opinion 
or  of  feeling  received  expressiou.  Therefore,  "  I  beg 
leave  to  differ  from  you"  is  correct,  and  "I  beg  leave 
to  differ  with  you  "  incorrect.  For  what  is  intended 
in  this  is  a  courteous  expression  of  mere  difference  of 
-opinion.  And  yet,  in  speaking  of  what  took  place  on 
such  an  occasion,  it  would  be  correct  to  say  that  the 
pne  instantly  differed  with  the  other.  We  should  not 
Bay  that  he  instantly  differed  from  him  ;  for  his  dif- 
ference from  the  opinion  of  the  man  with  whom  he 
ihen  differed  might  have  been  of  ten  years'  standing. 

A  CIVIL   SERVICE  QUESTION. — POSSESSIVES   OP 
COMPOUNDS. 

The  Board  of  Civil  Service  Examiners  at  Wash- 
ington gave,  as  a  test  of  the  knowledge  of  the  use  of 
the  apostrophe  as  a  sign  of  the  possessive  case,  th« 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      453 

following  sentence  :  "  The  Commissioner  of  Customa 
decisions  are  correct,"  requiring  the  apostrophe  to 
be  placed  after  "  customs."  A  dispute  having  arisen 
upon  the  point,  and  it  being  contended  that  the  proper 
form  was  "  The  Commissioner's  (of  Customs)  decis- 
ions are  correct,"  an  officer  of  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment submitted  the  question  to  me  for  an  opinion. 

The  point  here  to  be  considered  is,  What  is  it 
that  is  to  be  placed  in  the  possessive  ?  Who  is  it 
whose  decisions  are  correct  ?  The  commissioner,  of 
course.  But  is  the  word  commissioner  the  complete 
designation  of  the  subject  of  the  sentence  ?  If  we 
are  to  regard  the  words  "  of  customs  "  as  a  merely 
parenthetical  explanation  of  the  sort  of  commissioner 
Bpoken  of,  then  the  apostrophe,  which  is  the  sign  of 
the  possessive  case,  should  follow  the  word  commis- 
sioner. But  it  seems  plain  that,  according  to  general 
acceptance,  that  is  not  the  case  ;  and  that  "  Commis- 
sioner of  Customs  "  is  a  kind  of  compound  substan- 
tive, as  if  it  were  written  Commissioner-of-Customs. 
The  officers  thus  designated  are  not  spoken  of  merely 
as  commissioners,  except  in  the  customs  service.  That 
designation  would  be  altogether  too  vague.  Each  one 
of  them,  in  general  speech,  is  called  not  merely  a 
kCommissioner,  but  a  Commissioner  of  the  Customs ; 
jind  therefore  the  strict  grammatical  accuracy  insisted 
ipon  and  long-continued  usage  seem  to  be  perfectly 
consistent ;  and  consequently  the  decision  of  the  Civil 
Service  Board  is  correct.  We  say  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury's  report,  and  not  the  Secretary's  of  the 
Treasm-y  report ;  although  we  say  in  the  plural  the 
Secretaries  of  the  Treasury,  and  not  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasuries,  and  although,  when  it  was  under- 
rtood  that  affairs  of  the  Treasury  were  spoken  of,  an 


454  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

officer  of  the  Treasury,  and  the  public  generally, 
would  say  simply  the  Secretary's  report.  The  free 
structure  of  our  language  enables  us  to  make  such 
distinctions.  In  Latin,  for  example,  all  the  Avorda 
employed  in  the  expression  of  such  a  compound  idea 
would  be  in  the  genitive  case  ;  and  even  when  the 
words  are  actually  compounded  into  one  thej  are  still 
all  declined,  as  every  boy  knows  who  has  got  well  on 
in  his  accidence.  For  example,  respiiblica,  a  common- 
wealth, reipublicce,  of  a  commonwealth,  jusjurmidum^ 
an  oath,  jurisjurandi,  of  an  oath  ;  and  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  even  himself  is  thus  declined  :  nom.,  hesylf^ 
gen.,  hisiii/lfes,  etc.  But  in  English  it  seems  to  be 
yet  not  settled  by  usage  whether  we  are  to  say  some- 
body's  else  or  somebody  else's.  So  long  as  these  words 
are  regarded  as  two  and  written  as  two,  the  better 
usage  would  seem  to  be  somebody's  else.  For  else 
means  merely  other,  a  person  other  than  one  previ- 
ously spoken  of  or  implied ;  and  we  should  say  some- 
body's other  than  he,  and  not  somebody  other's  than 
he.  But  if  we  regard  the  two  ideas  as  compounded 
into  one,  and  write  somebody-else,  it  is  proper  to  write 
somebody-else's ;  for  which  there  is  the  authority  of 
usage  by  eminent  writers,  and  to  which  general  usage 
reems  to  be  tending.  Careful  writers  and  speakers, 
however,  are  still  particular  to  use  the  possessive  of 
the  uncompounded  form. 

VERBS   CORRESPONDING  TO   NOUNS   IN   "ION." 

The  following  letter,  from  an  officer  of  rank  and 
iistinction  in  the  navy,  brings  up  a  point  upon  which 
wrord-makers  who  have  given  little  attention  to  the 
structure  of  language  and  the  etymology  of  the  Ro- 
manic part  of  our  mixed  speech  should  be  very  cau 
rious: — 


DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,    OLD   AND   NEW.  455 

July  30,  1874 

Dear  Sir,  —  In  "Words  and  their  Uses"  it  is  stated^ 
the  precise  page  has  escaped  me  —  that  under  certain  con- 
ditions the  coining  of  a  word  is  justifiable.  I  am  unwill- 
ing to  quote  that  work  as  authority,  however,  without  your 
consent,  in  the  particular  case  to  which  I  am  about  to  refer, 
which  must  be  my  apology  for  addressing  you. 

In  writing  of  the  operations  of  fleets  it  is  very  frequently 
necessary  to  refer  to  their  movements  in  two  diflEerent  ways. 
1st.  Movements  to  gain  certain  advantages  over  the  enemy. 
Under  the  old  sailing  tactics,  for  example,  it  was  usual  to 
8ay  that  "  a  squadron  manceiivred  for  the  weather-gage,"  or 
"  a  squadron  so  manoeuvred  as  to  cut  off  the  enemy's  rear," 
etc.  But  when  we  wish  to  speak  of  a  tactical  movement  of 
the  fleet,  the  word  manoeuvre  will  not  answer  ;  we  must  then 
ase  evolution.  For  example  :  ''  The  fleet  had  been  so  thor- 
oughly exercised  that  it  was  able  to  perform  all  the  ordinary 
evolutions  of  a  fleet  with  readiness  and  precision  at  night  as 
well  as  by  day." 

In  the  one  case  we  say,  "  The  admiral  manoeuvred  the 
fleet  with  great  skill,"  etc.  In  the  other,  "  The  admiral  per- 
formed the  various  evolutions  like  a  skillful  tactician." 

But  to  perform  evolutions  seems  to  be  a  clumsy  expres- 
sion, and  to  evohite  expresses  the  action  clearly  and  simply. 
What  objection,  I  ask,  is  there  to  my  coining  that  word  to 
use  in  a  strictly  technical  sense  ? 

With  all  due  deference  to  Webster,  his  definition  of  the 
word  manoeuvre  is  not  technically  correct ;  and  from  the 
derivation  of  the  word  evolution  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
verb  to  evolute  would  be  perfectly  proper.  I  should  not  like 
to  have  such  a  word  printed  over  my  name,  however,  if  it 
cannot  stand  fire.  May  I  evolute  a  fleet  ?  Begging  you 
will  pardon  the  liberty  I  take  in  addressing  you, 

I  am  your  very  obedient  servant,  S.  D.  L. 

I  am  very  glad  that  this  gallant  officer  did   not 
*  evolute "  his  fleet      The  proposed  word  is,  I  need 


i56  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

hardly  say,  altogether  inadmissible.  And  yet,  as  wfl 
have  contortion  and  contort^  suggestion  and  suggest^ 
digestion  and  digest,  contribution  and  contribute,  per- 
sedition  and  persecute,  execution  and  execute,  and  the 
like,  it  may  seem  strange  to  many  persons  that,  as 
we  have  evolution,  we  cannot  have  evolute.  The 
reason  lies  in  the  mixed  character  of  our  language, 
which  compels  us  to  conform  the  etymology  of  many 
of  our  systems  of  words  to  that  of  other  tongues  (in 
this  case  to  that  of  the  Latin),  a  conformity  which 
nevertheless  may  be  carried  to  excess.  Our  words 
revolution,  convolution,  involution,  and  evolution  are 
all  derived  from  the  Latin,  and  are  based  upon  the 
Latin  verb  volvere,  to  turn  over,  to  unroll.  To  this 
stem  the  particles  re,  con,  in,  and  e  are  prefixed,  mak- 
ing the  vei-bs  revolvere,  convolvere,  involvere,  and  evol- 
vere.  The  nouns  in  question  are  formed  upon  a  part 
of  these  verbs  called  the  supine,  ending  in  turn  ;  as, 
revolutum,  and  so  forth.  For  the  correctness  of  their 
formation  we  have  the  example  of  the  classical  evolu- 
tio,  but  revolutio  is  Low  Latin.  The  verbs  correspond- 
ing to  these  nouns  are  therefore  formed  upon  the 
Latin  verbs  corresponding  to  their  supines  ;  and  the 
verb  of  revolution  is  revolve,  of  evolution  evolve,  of 
involution  involve,  and  so  forth.  There  is  a  classical 
Latin  verb  voluto,  meaning  to  roll,  but  that  was  not 
used  in  compounds.  To  speak  of  evoluting  a  fleet 
would  therefore  be  like  speaking  of  revoluting  a  gov- 
ernment, or  involuting  a  man  in  a  troublesome  af' 
fair.  But  when  we  speak  of  the  overturning  of  a 
government  we  do  not  say  that  it  is  revolved.  We 
take  the  word  revolution,  which  has  come  to  have  a 
special  sense  in  that  regard,  and  adding  to  it  the 
Bufifix  ize  we  say  that  the  government  is  revolution* 


DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,    OLD    AND   NEW.  457 

ized.     In  like  manner,  if  manoeuvre  will  not  expres 
the  tactical  movements  of  a  fleet  for  which  evolution 
has  acquired  a  specific  sense,  it  is  probable  that  naval 
tacticians  will  use  the  word  evolutionize,  which,  al- 
Miough  not  a  lovely  word,  is  quite  analogical. 

It  is  probable  that  this  querist  was  led  into  his  sur- 
mise by  what  is  said  in  "  Words  and  their  Uses  " 
about  the  use  of  juxtapose^  —  that  it  is  correct,  that 
word  being  involved  in  juxtaposition.  But  our  word 
position  and  its  compounds,  although  they  originate 
in  the  Latin  verb  ponere,  to  place,  come  to  us  directly 
from  the  French  ;  our  words  and  the  French  being  in 
fact  the  very  same,  letter  for  letter.  We  therefore 
do  not  go  to  the  Latin  verb  potiere  for  the  corre- 
sponding verbs  to  those  nouns.  We  do  not  say  im- 
pone,  depone,  expone,  and  so  forth  ;  but  we  use  the 
compounds  of  the  French  verb  pose?^  and  say  impose, 
depose.)  expose,  and  so  forth,  using  even  pose  in  the 
sense  of  to  place  formally.  Therefore,  also,  using  jux- 
taposition, we  may  use  juxtapose. 

"ENGLISH    DEFILED." 

Among  the  criticisms  of  the  Department  reports 
which  accompanied  the  President's  Message  at  the 
opening  of  the  session  of  Congress,  1874,  was  one  of  a 
gtrictly  verbal  character.  Such  criticisms  are  rare,  -— 
rarer  than  they  should  be  ;  for  our  public  documents, 
including  our  acts  of  Congress  and  our  state  laws, 
have  for  some  years  past  been  so  carelessly  worded 
and  so  confused  in  their  construction  that  it  can 
Hardly  be  but  that,  in  years  to  c-Dme,  misunderstand- 
ing and  doubt  will  arise  as  to  the  meaning  of  many 
j>f  them,  and  consequently  serious  trouble.  This  in- 
excusable  slovenliness,  and    the   contrast   presented 


40  S  EVEEY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

thereto  by  the  care  and  precision  us  to  style  in  the 
making  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  1 
have  previously  remarked  upon.^  That  instrument 
and  the  laws  passed  by  Congress  in  the  earliest  years 
of  the  federal  republic  are  models  of  simplicity  and 
clearness  of  expression,  which  it  would  be  well  for 
the  oflBcial  persons  and  the  legislators  of  our  day  to 
study  and  to  follow.  Very  rarely  does  it  happen 
that  there  is  any  doubt  as  to  the  construction  or  the 
real  meaning  of  a  passage  in  any  one  of  those  laws, 
other  than  such  as  must  arise  when  the  necessarily 
imperfect  instrument  of  human  expression,  language, 
is  used  by  more  than  one  person  at  more  than  one 
time. 

For  with  all  our  efforts  towai'd  its  perfection,  the 
meaning  of  language  cannot  be  made  absolutely  and 
permanently  precise  and  certain.  It  can  hardly  be 
trusted  as  it  is  used  between  man  and  man  for  the 
moment ;  and  indeed  it  may  be  doubted  whether  in 
all  speech,  which  is  the  only  real  language,  the 
speaker  (that  is,  his  character,  tone  of  mind,  views  of 
life,  and  immediate  feeling  and  purpose)  is  not  such 
an  essential  element  of  meaning  that  what  is  once 
spoken  can  never  be  again  exactly  repeated.  The 
word  perishes  in  its  utterance,  dies  in  its  birth,  and 
can  never  again  be  restored  to  its  full  life,  except 
under  exactly  the  same  circumstances,  —  the  speaker 
the  same,  the  hearer  the  same,  their  surroundings 
and  state  of  mind  the  same,  as  they  were  when  it 
ivas  spoken  ;  a  recurrence  which  can  never  happen. 
But  as  practically  words  must  be  regarded  as  hav- 
ing a  fixable  and  generally  accepted,  if  not  a  lasting 
and  universally  understood,  meaning,  this  element  of 

1  Words  ana  their  Uses,  pages  36-38. 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      459 

change  and  uncertainty  in  language  is  only  a  reason 
for  the  greater  care  and  precision  in  its  vise  on  all 
occasions  of  general  and  enduring  importance. 

To  return  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  and  the 
Bins  against  English  with  which  he  was  charged. 
Hardly  had  his  report  been  published,  when  one  of 
our  daily  newspapers,  which  has  long  held  a  high 
position  as  an  authority  in  literature  no  less  than 
in  politics  and  on  social  questions,  —  a  paper  with 
which  are  connected  the  names  of  Bryant  and  Parke 
Godwin  and  John  Bigelow,  —  the  "  Evening  Post," 
fell  upon  the  hapless  Secretary  in  an  editorial  article 
headed  "  English  Defiled,"  in  which  he  was  sorely 
chastened  for  using  two  words,  eventuality  and  canal- 
ized. These  the  critic  placed  without  hesitation  in 
the  class  of  words  that  are  not  words.  The  Secretary 
wrote  that  the  coming  transit  of  Venus  seemed  to 
him  an  occurrence  of  such  scientific  importance  that 
he  had  determined  to  put  a  government  ship  at  the 
service  of  a  party  of  observers,  "  under  any  eventu- 
ality now  considered."  This  use  of  eventuality  was 
thus  censured  :  — 

"  What  he  means  to  say  is  that  he  will  do  this  under  any 
circumstances,  or  contingency,  or  event.  '  Eventuality  '  is 
a  very  poor  word  at  the  best,  and  of  doubtful  birth.  It  has 
a  place  in  the  best  dictionaries,  it  is  true,  but  its  origin  is 
laid  to  the  score  of  what  is  called  phrenology,  and  appears 
to  have  been  due  to  the  desire  of  some  '  professor  '  to  get 
a  new  name  for  an  old  bump.  In  that  technical  sense  it 
means  a  '  propensity  to  take  cognizance  of  facts  or  events.' 
Its  misuse,  into  which  Secretary  Robeson  has  fallen,  is  com- 
mon among  a  class  of  newspaper  reporters,  and  those  persons 
ivho  prefer  sound  to  sense. 

The  exception,  m  certain  respects,  seems  to  lie  well 


460  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

taken.  Eventuality  is  certainly  a  poor  word  at  the 
best,  for  English-speaking  folk  to  use.  It  belongs  to 
a  class  which  might  well  be  swept  out  and  kept  out 
of  the  language,  and  which  the  persons  described  do 
use  in  a  very  unadmirable  and  un-English  way.  But 
as  to  its  meaning  (if  it  is  to  be  admitted  to  use  at 
all)  only  "  a  propensity  to  take  cognizance  of  facta 
or  events,"  that  is  at  least  doubtful.  That  is  the 
only  definition  of  it  which  is  given  in  Worcester's 
Dictionary,  and  substantially  in  Webster's,  which 
hold  and  deserve  so  high  an  authoritative  position 
as  to  definition.  That  is  its  technical  phrenological 
meaning.  So  far  it  is  little  better  than  a  cant  word, 
and  must  be  so  regarded  until  phrenology  takes  a 
recognized  place  among  the  sciences.  It  is  not  rec- 
ognized as  an  English  word  in  Latham's  edition 
of  Johnson.  But  in  Stormonth's  Etymological  Dic- 
tionary, eventuality  is  defined  as  meaning  "  the  com- 
ing or  happening  as  a  consequence ;  contingency ; 
dependence  upon  an  uncertain  event  ;  an  organ  in 
phrenology,  said  to  enable  one  to  note  and  com- 
pare all  the  active  occurrences  of  life."  Here  even 
the  technical  or  cant  meaning  of  the  word  seems  to  be 
more  clearly  set  forth  than  by  either  Worcester  or 
Webster ;  and  as  to  the  real  or  etymological  defini- 
tion previously  given,  it  is  hard  to  see  how,  if  the 
word  is  recognized  at  all,  that  meaning  can  be  denied 
to  it.  Taking  event  as  the  base,  if  we  are  to  go  on 
and  build  up  a  system  of  verb,  adjective,  and  adverb 
upon  it,  —  if  we  are  to  have  the  verb  eventuate,  the 
adjective  eventual,  and  the  adverb  eventually,  —  how 
can  we  consistently  stop  short  of  eventuality  ?  Events 
Hal,  which  is  the  French  iventuel,  means  "  happening 
i»  a  consequence,"  and  eventuality,  the  noun  forraea 


DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,   OLD   AND   NEW.  461 

tipon  it,  must  mean  '•'■the  coming  or  happening  as  a 
consequence."  The  technical  phrenological  use  of 
the  word  is  purely  arbitrary,  and  if  not  cant  at  least 
cantish.  Its  real  etymological  meaning,  that  which 
logically  comes  from  the  combination  of  its  base, 
event,  with  the  suffixes  al  and  ity,  is  that  which  is 
given  by  Stormonth,  "  the  coming  or  happening  as  a 
consequence,"  —  just  the  sense  in  which  it  was  used 
by  Secretary  Robeson. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  a  word  which  the  Secretary 
might  better  not  have  used,  and  which  every  man 
who  would  write  good  English  may  well  eschew.  For 
after  all  our  double  suffixing  we  get  only  a  pretentious 
word  of  five  syllables,  which  means  no  more  than 
event  itself.  Our  journey  brings  us  back  just  whence 
we  started.  Event  is  "  that  which  happens  or  comes 
to  pass,  the  conclusion,  the  consequence  of  any- 
thing;" the  difference  between  which  and  the  defi- 
nition given  above  of  eventuality  is  not  quite  equal  to 
that  between  tweedledum  and  tweedledee.^  And  the 
same  reasoning  applies  to  eventuate,  which  means  to 
come  out  as  a  result  —  a  meaning  for  the  expression 
of  which  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  use  such  a  word. 
For  the  English  way  of  expressing  that  meaning  is 
to  use  the  word  event  as  a  verb,  as  it  has  heretofore 
been  used.  We  have  made  the  word  eveyit  from  the 
Latin ;  and  it  is  our  English  way  to  use  words  both  aa 
nouns  and  as  verbs.     Should  we  abandon  that  usage 

1  So  Edward  Freeman,  distinguished  hardly  less  as  a  philologist  than  as 

historian  :  — 

"  We  have  heard  in  modern  times  jf  oppressed  nationalities,'  —  a  form 
■f  words  which,  I  suppose,  means  much  the  same  as  oppressed  nations." 
Comparative  Politics,  page  84.) 

These  alities  are  often  poor  stuff;  and  some  of  tne  osities  are  not  muck 
W.ttBr. 


462  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

our  language  would  lose  not  only  one  of  its  strik- 
ing features,  but  one  great  element  of  its  strength. 
It  is  the  free  use  of  words,  without  regard  to  the 
grammatical  distinctions  of  verb,  noun,  adjective,  and 
adverb,  but  with  a  clear  apprehension  of  their  in- 
herent meaning,  that  gives  to  Elizabethan  English 
that  force  and  pungency  and  picturesqueness  which, 
with  all  the  later  refinements  and  enrichments  of  our 
tongue,  even  our  best  writers  find  it  difiicult,  nay, 
quite  impossible,  to  attain.  We  of  to-day  are  more 
exact,  more  precise ;  but  we  are  comparatively  tame 
and  weak.  As  to  eventuate  and  eventuality^  and  their 
inevitable  consequences,  eventualize  and  eventualiza- 
tion,  which,  yet  unknown,  I  believe,  have  equal  claims 
with  the  others  to  recognition,  we  can  do  better  with- 
out them  all  than  with  any  one  of  theui.  The  use  of 
event  as  a  verb  —  for  example,  "  Such  a  course  of 
conduct  would  event  unhappily"  —  is  thoroughly  in 
accordance  with  English  analogy  and  precedent. 

The  other  occasion  of  censure  by  the  same  critic  is 
in  the  following  sentence :  "  The  westerly  trend  of 
the  coast  made  the  area  that  would  have  to  be  canal- 
ized broader  in  extent."  As  to  this  it  is  said  :  "  We 
hope  the  Secretary  knows  that  there  is  no  such  word 
as  canalize  in  the  English  language.  He  might  as 
well  speak  of  the  removal  of  the  rocks  at  Hell  Gate 
as  channelizing  the  harbor  of  New  York."  The  for- 
mation of  the  two  words  is  certainly  just  alike,  and 
Bo  is  their  propriety.  And  it  so  happens  that  they 
are  in  fact  the  same  word,  canal  and  channel  being 
merely  different  ways  of  spelling  one  word,  as  any 
one  will  see  by  pronouncing  the  ch  of  the  latter  word 
bard ;  and  kennel,  a  gutter  or  water  course  in  a  street 
B  also  the  same  word,  merely  spelled  in  another  way 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      463 

But  the  fact,  however,  that  there  is  yet  no  such 
word  in  Eneflish  as  canalize  is  not  a  valid  obiection 
to  its  use.  That  sort  of  conservatism  will  never  do 
in  language.  If  we  need  new  words,  we  must  have 
them ;  and  we  will.  This  I  have  again  and  again 
impressed  upon  the  readers  of  my  word-colloquies, 
which  are  written  from  no  conservative  or  purist 
point  of  view.i 

The  real  objection  to  canalize  is  twofold :  that  it  is 
both  needless  and  un-English.  Here  again  it  is  Eng- 
glish  to  use  the  same  word  as  a  noun  and  as  a  verb, 
and  to  write  "  made  broader  the  area  that  woulc" 
have  to  be  canaled,"  etc.  The  sentence  thus  written 
would  have  been  understood  at  a  glance  by  every 
English-speaking  man  who  could  read,  and  would 
have  attracted  no  attention  because  of  the  words 
that  entered  into  its  structure ;  which,  in  sober  busi- 
ness prose  at  least,  is  one  of  the  most  desirable  of  all 
qualities  in  a  sentence.  Canal  and  channel  are  both 
nouns,  but  with  the  use  of  the  latter  as  a  verb,  to 
channel^  and  in  the  participial  forms  channeling  and 
channeled^  we  are  all  well  acquainted ;  and  the  former 
word  should  be  used  in  the  same  manner.  Indeed, 
this  observation  should  not  be  necessary,  and  would 
not  here  be  made,  were  it  not  for  the  tendency  (of 
which  the  misuse  in  question  is  a  sign)  to  set  aside 
the  simple  and  the  English  mode  of  word  formation 
in  favor  of  one  which  would  give  us  in  this  case,  for 
example,  the  following  sequence :  canal,  noun  ;  to  ca- 
nalize, verb;  canalist,  noun,  one  who  makes  or  "  runs" 
canals ;  canalization,  noun,  the  making  of  canals  ;  ca* 
nalal,  adjective,  having  reference  to  canals ;  and  last 
Qot  least  (on  the  system  which  gives  us  experiment 

1  Words  and  their  Uses,  page  406,  an  I  jjcissirn. 


464  EVEKY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

talize  instead  of  experiment,  as  a  verb),  canalalize^ 
to  make  canals,  und  caiialalist,  one  who  makes  canals, 
not  by  simply  making  them  as  best  he  can,  but  in 
the  high  and  mighty  style,  according  to  a  "  complex 
of  canons."  The  word  canal,  used  as  a  verb  or  noun, 
with  perhaps  the  addition  of  canaler  or  eanalist^ 
would  answer  all  the  needs  of  any  English-speaking 
man  who  does  not  affect  the  grand  style,  and  desire 
finer  bread  than  is  made  of  wheat. 

These  almost  ti-ite  remarks  will  be  justified  if  they 
help  to  direct  the  attention  of  the  general  reader  and 
the  average  writer  to  the  characteristic  English  use 
of  the  same  word  as  noun  and  verb,  and  the  need- 
lessness  in  most  cases  of  adding  the  suffix  ize  to  our 
nouns  for  the  sake  of  verbal  form  or  expression.  In 
many  cases  necessity  or  convenience  requires  it,  and 
then  it  must  and  will  be  used.  But  when  not  so  re- 
quired, it  may  much  better  be  omitted  from  a  lan- 
guage already  overloaded  with  words  that  hiss  at 
themselves  as  they  are  uttered. 

EPIDEMIC   AND  ENDEMIC:   A  QUESTION  IN  MEDICAL 
TERMINOLOGY. 

Knoxville,  East  Tennksree,  | 
3fay  23,  1874.  ) 

Dear  Sir,  —  I  do  not  wish  my  name,  at  least  for  the 
present,  to  be  made  public  in  connectiru  with  any  attention 
courteously  given  by  you  to  the  subject  of  this  uote. 

I  am  anxious  for  the  medical  as  well  as  the  general 
readers  of  your  articles  to  have  your  opinion  of  the  employ- 
nent  of  a  word  which  is  in  common  use,  but  which,  not 
tilways  having  the  same  force,  is  consequently  a  source  of 
^rror  in  doctrine. 

I  do  not  particularly  care  for  its  original  or  derivative 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      465 

force,  but  I  desire  its  meaning  as  a  scientific  term  or  as  a 
professional  technicality  to  be  conventionally  fixed,  —  to  be 
destitute  of  any  capacity  to  fill  more  than  a  single  purpose ; 
as  terms  in  science  and  technicalities  in  professions  ought 
always  invariably  to  carry  the  same  force  and  meaning. 
The  word  is  epidemic.  I  know  that  in  its  popular  sense  it 
conveys  the  idea  of  wide-spread ;  but  I  think  that  it  is  never 
properly  used  by  a  mediciner  except  in  a  sense  antithetical 
with  the  word  endemic.  In  my  fallible  judgment  both  words 
have  the  same  derivative  force,  and  hence  it  is  useless  to 
retain  them  both  in  professional  language,  unless  each  has 
attached  to  it  by  agreement  a  specific,  determined  meaning. 
It  is  true  that  the  dictionary  consulted  by  medical  men  in 
this  country  —  Dunglison's  —  and  the  great  dictionary  by 
Webster  sustain  the  view  I  have  expressed  ;  but  there  is 
hardly  a  medical  journal  published  in  the  English  language 
on  the  pages  of  which  the  word  epidemic  can  be  found  and 
restricted  to  the  definition  as  expressed  in  Dunglison's  and 
in  Webster's  dictionaries.  Bell's  "  Encyclopgedia,"  that 
probably  will  now  be  extensively  appealed  to  as  authorita- 
tive, gives  a  view  very  different  from  Dunglison  and  Web- 
ster. I  trust  that  your  silence  will  not  cause  me  to  feel 
that  I  have  presumed. 

Very  respectfully,  etc.,  Dr.  F.  A.  R. 

Of  the  great  desirability  of  a  fixed  exactness  in 
the  meaning  attached  to  scientific  or  technical  terms 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  Indeed,  vagueness  of  mean- 
ing is  the  defect  most  to  be  avoided  in  all  language  ; 
and  it  is  chief  among  the  few  defects  of  our  own 
mixed  speech.  It  is  more  difficult  for  a  vmter  to 
express  himself  in  English  with  an  exactness  which 
shuts  off  misapprehension  and  perversion,  than  it  is 
for  him  to  do  so  in  German,  French,  Italian,  Spanish, 
or  Latin.  I  know  of  at  least  one  profound  scholar 
irho  has  given  up  all  reading  of  English  books  on 

30 


466  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

philosophy  and  the  like  subjects,  because  of  the  Tague 
and  shifting  way  in  which  English  writers  use  lan- 
guage, and  of  another  person,  a  writer  of  distinction, 
who  declines  oral  discussion  altogether,  because  he 
says  it  is  impossible  to  understand  just  what  people 
mean.  My  humble  endeavors  in  language  have  been 
made  chiefly  in  the  hope  of  promoting  in  some  meas- 
ure a  greater  exactness  in  speech,  which  they  may 
do  at  least  by  directing  attention  to  the  inexactness 
which  prevails. 

As  to  the  sense  of  the  medical  term  brought  up  by 
our  physician,  I  have  only  to  say  that  it  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  that  such  a  word  should  have  a 
precise  meaning.  But  although  my  special  medical 
studies  were  discontiimed  many  years  ago,  they  were, 
1  think,  carried  far  enough,  and  have  brought  me 
enough  into  contact  with  the  profession,  to  justify  me 
in  expressing  a  doubt  as  to  the  assumed  uncertainty 
of  meaning  with  which  epidemic  is  used  by  physi- 
cians. According  to  my  observation,  it  is  not  used 
by  them  as  antithetical  to  endemic,  but  rather  as  dis- 
criminative from  it. 

Etymologically  both  words  have  nearly  the  same 
meaning ;  their  only  difference  being  that  of  the  two 
Greek  prepositions  epi  and  en,  of  which  the  former 
means  upon  and  the  latter  in,  or  among.  Epidemic 
means,  therefore,  upon  the  people  (^demoii),  endemic, 
in  or  among  the  people.  The  former,  according  to 
established  usage  among  the  best  physicians,  means 
strictly  a  disease  which  breaks  out  and  diffuses  itself 
widely  over  a  community,  and  which  sooner  or  later 
abates  and  disappears,  possibly  never  to  return.  Tha 
\fitter,  according  to  the  same  usage,  means  a  disease 
whicV  prevails  in  and  pertains  to  a  particular  neigh« 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      4G7 

borbooJ  ;  a  disease  not  brought  there,  but  belonging 
there,  and  which,  although  it  may  prevail  more  at 
one  time  than  at  another,  is  likely  to  be  found  in 
that  neighborhood  at  any  time,  except  perhaps  under 
certain  forbidding  conditions,  as,  for  example,  black 
frost.  Thus  yellow  fever  is  endemic  in  Havana  ;  it 
was  in  former  years  epidemic  in  New  York.  E'ever 
and  ague  is  endemic  in  many  places  ;  strictly  speak- 
ing, it  is  never  epidemic  anywhere.  Small-pox  and 
Bcarlet  fever  are  apt  to  become  epidemic  wherever 
they  appear  ;  they  are  not  endemic  in  any  place,  or 
among  any  people ;  but  it  seems  as  if  diphtheria 
were  about  to  become  endemic  in  certain  neighbor- 
hoods in  the  city  of  New  York.  Goitre  is  endemic 
in  Switzerland,  and  elephantiasis  in  the  East.  Chol- 
era is  an  epidemic  which,  starting  from  India,  dif- 
fuses itself  among  all  peoples  and  throughout  all 
countries ;  while  puerperal  peritonitis  may  become  a 
local  epidemic  circumscribed  by  the  walls  of  a  lying- 
in  hospital. 

In  these  senses,  I  believe,  these  words  are  strictly 
used  by  all  competent  and  careful  medical  writers 
and  speakers.  When  there  appears  to  be  uncertainty 
or  confusion  in  their  use  by  such  persons,  it  will  be 
found,  I  am  quite  sure,  to  apply  rather  to  the  facts 
than  to  the  phraseology.  One  physician  or  medical 
writer  may  regard  that  as  epidemic  which  another 
believes  to  be  endemic  •  but  the  character  and  hab- 
its of  a  malady  being  once  clearly  discriminated  and 
firmly  settled,  there  is,  according  to  my  observation, 
no  question  as  to  the  class  under  which  it  should  be 
ranged. 


468  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

SCIENTIST,   AND    OTHER   ISTS. 

The  word  scientist  has  been  brought  to  my  atten- 
tion by  more  than  one  correspondent.  It  has  attained 
a  certain  degree  of  usage  among  those  who  it  would 
Beem  are  dissatisfied  with  "scientific  man"  and  "man 
of  science,"  and  who  doubtless,  with  like  distaste 
to  "  literary  man  "  and  "  man  of  letters,"  will  soon 
contrive  some  dreadful  compound  in  ist  to  use  m 
their  stead,  Scientist  appears  to  me,  as  it  does  to 
many  others,  intolerable,  as  being  both  unlovely  in  it- 
self and  improper  in  its  formation.  "  Sample-room  " 
language  gives  us  drinkist^  sJiootist,  ivalkist,  and  the 
like  with  an  undisguised  incongruity,  which  has  a 
ridiculous  effect,  partly  at  least  intentional,  if  not 
wholly  so.  Those  words  are  regarded  as  the  creations 
of  exquisite  humor  by  the  persons  who  use  them  ;  nay, 
their  very  use  is  looked  upon  as  an  indication  of  la- 
tent powers  which  would  place  the  user,  if  he  would 
but  let  himself  out,  foremost  in  the  ranks  of  the  noble 
army  of  "  American  humorists." 

We  say  normally  naturalist,  geologist,  organist,  etc., 
and  may  properly  use  as  many  more  words  formed 
in  like  manner  as  we  choose  to  coin.  But  I  can  find 
no  lawful  instance  corresponding  to  scientist,  which 
might  well  go  with  drinkist  and  shootist.  If  we 
would,  we  could  say  sciencist ;  and  let  who  will  say 
it,  and  hiss  himself  properly  in  the  sayhig  of  it.  But 
we  cannot  break  up  the  sibilation  with  a  ^;  for  even 
the  noun  scientia  will  yield  us  only  ti,  which  in  soun(? 
is  sh,  and  sciential  (noun)  and  scientialist  must  b» 
left  to  the  lovers  of  words  like  agential  ("  an  agen- 
tial ") ;  and  if  we  assume  the  obsolete  scient  as  iti 
base,  the  meaning  of  our  new  word  will  be  "know 
ingist." 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      469 

In  former  times  the  suffix  er  seems  to  have  been 
the  principal,  if  not  the  only,  means  of  expressing 
both  the  doer  of  an  act  and  the  practicer  of  an  art 
or  craft ;  for  example,  murderer^  astrologer.  Still  a 
distinction  between  the  two  purposes  was,  in  a  man- 
ner, preserved  by  confining  the  suffix  for  the  former 
purpose  generally  to  a  verb,  and  for  the  latter  to  a 
noun,  that  is,  the  name  of  the  art  or  profession  prac- 
ticed. A  more  modern  development  in  the  same  di- 
rection has  led  to  the  free  appropriation  of  the  Greek 
Buffixes  of  use,  ize,  ism^  ist,  to  make  upon  nouns,  after 
the  Greek  model,  verbs  of  using,  abstract  nouns  of 
usage,  and  personal  nouns  for  the  user  of  the  thing; 
for  example,  dogmatize,  dogmatism,  and  dogmatist, 
—  words  an  acquaintance  with  which  will  not  be 
denied  by  certain  critics  to  the  present  writer.  A 
movement  towards  symmetry  and  consistency  leads 
us  to  avoid  new  coinage  in  er  upon  substantive  roots, 
Buch,  for  instance,  as  geologer  and  organer  would  be. 
There  is  not  only  a  weakness,  but  a  kind  of  insin- 
cerity, in  the  interchanging  and  confusing  of  these 
transplanted  and  assimilated  suffixes,  now  well  dis- 
tinguished and  valuable,  —  and  valuable,  of  course, 
just  in  the  degree  in  which  their  exact  and  distinctive 
senses  are  maintained.  And  I  here  remark  upon  an 
Rstonishingly  neglected  difference  —  neglected  by  men 
who  should  and  do  know  better  —  between  the  ter- 
minations ize  and  yse.  Both  of  these,  indeed,  are 
from  the  Greek  ;  but  the  latter,  although  it  is  fre- 
quently confounded  with  the  former,  has  nothing  in 
common  with  it,  not  being  a  suffix  at  all,  but  repre- 
senting the  Greek  AuVi?,  a  loosening,  as  in  ijaralyse 
and  analyse,  which  are  ofte?i  absurdl}'  spelled  para- 
lyze and  analyze,  and  which  we  may  perhaps  look 


470  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

to  see  spelled  paralize  and  analize  in  what  has  been 
called  "  the  good  English  of  the  future." 

This  consideration  of  terminations  in  ist  leads  me 
to  remark  upon  another  word  of  late  introduction, 
'physicist.  In  its  sound,  fizzisist,  it  is  unlovely,  and 
in  its  formation  it  is  irregular  and  ambiguous.  From 
our  lazy,  make-shift,  and  really  unnatural  habit  of 
going  to  Greek  and  Latin,  instead  of  combining  or  de- 
veloping the  elements  of  our  own  language,  when  we 
need  a  name  for  a  new  thought  or  a  new  thing,  we  have 
two  words,  of  which,  although  they  mean  ver}^  differ- 
ent things,  one  is  a  mere  plural  form  of  the  other,  — 
physic,  the  art  of  healing,  and  any  drug  or  medicinal 
substance,  and  physics,  the  science  which  treats  of 
the  properties  of  matter.  Now  to  express  by  the  use 
of  the  suffix  ist  a  student  or  professor  of  the  latter 
science,  we  should  make  the  word  physics-ist.  But 
that  being  intolerable  in  sound,  we  have  in  its  stead 
physic-ist,  which  really,  according  to  its  formation, 
means  a  professor  or  student  of  the  art  of  physic,  — 
quite  a  different  meaning  from  that  of  which  we  are 
seeking  the  expression  ;  and  we  pronounce  it,  instead 
of  fizzikist,  fizzisist,  thus  not  really  improving  much 
on  fizziksist,  if  indeed  the  latter,  by  the  interruption 
by  a  A;  of  the  continued  hissing,  is  not  the  pleasanter 
word,  or  rather  the  less  offensive.  We  thus  obtain 
only  an  incorrect  formation,  an  etymologically  am- 
biguous meaning,  and  a  succession  of  hisses  whicb 
our  performance  well  deserves.  I  am  not  here  pro. 
nouncing  against  the  use  of  physicist,  although  a 
better  word  is  much  to  be  desired  ;  but  merelj'-  re- 
marking upon  one  of  the  evils  that  come  from  our 
weak  way  of  going  to  foreign  languages  to  supply  ua 
with  words  for  ideas  which  were  already  expressed 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      471 

in  English  words,  or  which  might  have  been  expressed 
by  English  combinations.  We  did  not  gain  much, 
to  say  the  least,  when  we  dropped  leech  and  leechcraft 
for  phi/sician  and  medicine.  We  might  learn  in  this 
respect  much  from  the  Germans,  who  within  tlie  last 
half  century  have  turned  many  Latin  and  Greet 
words  out  of  their  language,  even  in  their  scientific 
vocabulary,  to  replace  them  by  Teutonic  words,  sim- 
ple and  compound  ;  the  gain  whereby  to  their  lan- 
guage in  strength,  significance,  and  symmetry  has 
been  great,  and  no  less  in  nationality  of  character. 

The  last  and  altogether  the  most  exquisite  ex- 
ample of  ist-ing  that  I  have  met  with  is  in  the  fol- 
lowing paragraph  in  a  tremendous  puff  of  the  hen- 
nery of  a  young  woman  in  Pennsylvania :  "  One 
young  country  girl.  Miss  A.  K.,  of  Bethel,  Pennsyl- 
vania, is  entitled  to  the  praise  of  being  the  best  lady 
poultryist  on  record."  I  have  been  lifted  very  high 
upon  winged  words  before,  but  "lady  poultryist"  for 
henwife  is  a  pitch  of  elegance  to  rise  to  which  quite 
takes  one's  breath  away.  It  is  a  very  good  example 
of  what  we  may  be  brought  to  if  every  woman  must 
be  called  a  lady,  and  every  occupation  must  have  a 
fine  name.  Miss  K.,  if  henwife  is  too  homely  a  word 
to  be  applied  to  her,  is  a  poulterer,  or,  if  her  sex 
must  be  indicated,  a  poulteress  ;  for  we  are  told  that 
she  not  only  raises,  but  buys  and  sells  poultry. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  people  who  are  so  ex- 
quisitely elegant  and  grandiloquent  are  those  who  are 
east  able  to  write  a  simple  English  sentence  cor- 
rectly. Thus  this  same  writer,  in  another  part  of  his 
{irticle,  tells  us  that  "when  attacked  by  the  prevail- 
ing poultry  disease  last  year.  Miss  K.  freely  checked 
'ts  spread  by  the  fret  use  '^f   lime."     Now,  it  is  pet- 


472  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

haps  in  the  order  of  nature  that  a  poultryist  should 
be  attacked  by  the  poultry  disease.  Indeed,  it  would 
seem  as  if  a  poultryist  must  mean  a  person  who  haa 
that  ailment.  Still,  I  doubt  that  the  writer  did  in- 
tend to  publish  to  the  world  that  this  young  woman 
was  thus  afflicted,  and  that  she  subjected  herself  and 
her  surroundings  to  a  course  of  lime  therefor.  Y^et 
what  he  says  means  that,  and  nothing  else.  The 
blunder  that  he  makes  is  not  uncommon  with  people 
who  cannot  see  the  logical  connection  of  words  in  sen- 
tences. It  would  be  very  much  better  to  find  out 
and  to  master  that  than  to  invent  such  ridiculoua 
phrases  as  lady  poultryist. 

"  POLITIQUE  "   AND   POLITICAL. 

It  is  appropriate  that  I  should  here  remark  upon 
the  following  proposition  made  by  the  able  Vienna 
correspondent  of  the  New  York  "  Times  :  "  — 

"  I  must  take  this  occasion  to  ask  some  of  our  linguists,  Mr. 
Richard  Grant  White,  for  instance,  if  we  cannot  adopt  the 
word  'politique.  '  Political  reasons '  is  not  the  equivalent 
of  the  concise  and  comprehensive  French  term ;  and  espe- 
cially in  America,  where  the  word  'politics'  has  been  de- 
graded until  it  conveys  something  of  a  reproach, '  a  political 
reason  *  is  not  une  raison  politique.  There  is  a  certain 
amount  of  opprobrium  conveyed  when  we  speak  of  a  man 
as  a  '  politician.'  We  have  adopted  a  few  very  expressive 
French  words,  —  '  solidarity,' to  give  an  example,  —  and  I 
do  not  see  why  we  should  not  appropriate  such  large  and 
useful  words  as  politique,  sagesse,  esprit,  morale,  and  about  & 
half  dozen  more  of  the  sort." 

It  is  first  to  be  said  that  the  writer  to  whom  this 
question  is  referred  makes  no  pretension  to  being  a 
linguist ;  and  at  the  very  outset  informed  his  readeri 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      473 

that  he  undertook  upon  this  subject  only  what  h« 
could  do  "without  venturing  beyond  the  limits  of  hia 
own  yet  imperfect  knowledge  of  his  mother  tongue."  ^ 
Nor  does  he  presume  to  "  adopt "  a  word,  except  for 
his  own  use,  or  to  express  more  than  an  individual 
opinion  as  to  the  propriety  of  its  adoption  by  others. 
As  to  the  word  proposed,  however,  there  does  indeed 
seem  to  him  no  necessity  for  transplanting  it  from  the 
French  language  into  the  English.  Such  transfers 
are  sometimes  necessary,  although  much  more  rarely 
than  is  supposed  ;  but  they  are  always  to  be  avoided, 
unless  they  enable  us  to  express  a  thought  which  is 
not  within  the  compass  of  our  own  vocabulary.  It 
is  difficult  to  discover  what  the  French  politique  ex- 
presses which  is  not  better  expressed  by  our  own  pol- 
itic, politics,  political,  and  politician.  Indeed,  here 
we  have  much  the  advantage ;  for  politique  is  already 
overloaded  in  French,  in  which  it  means  politic,  po- 
litical, a  politic  person,  a  politician,  politics,  and  state 
policy.  Only  a  somewhat  whimsical  fancy,  it  seems 
to  me,  can  find  in  une  raison  politique  any  meaning 
other  or  better  than  in  a  political  reason,  a  politic 
reason,  or  a  reason  of  state  policy.  And  as  to  the 
degradation  of  politics  by  politicians  with  us,  it  would 
hardly  be  wise  to  confess  that  it  had  become  so  thor- 
ough and  absolute  that  we  must  "  putrify  "  it  in  our 
language.  The  Credit  Mobilier  has  brought  disgrace, 
not  honor,  upon  those  who  were  engaged  in  it ;  and 
William  Tweed  was  sent  to  the  penitentiary  on  Black- 
rvell's  Island.  As  to  the  other  words  brought  for- 
ward as  examples  of  happy  transplantation,  it  is  not 
pso  certain  that  some  of  them  might  not  well  be  spared. 
Without  being  too  narrowly  proud  to  learn  or  to 

^  Preface  to  Words  and  their  Dses. 


474  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

borrow  from  others,  may  wu  not  say  with   George 
Herbert,  — 

"  Let  forrain  nations  of  their  language  boast, 
What  fine  variety  each  tongue  affords; 
I  lilte  our  language,  as  our  men  and  coast. 
Who  cannot  dresse  it  well  want  wit,  not  words^ 

(The  Church,  page  ld<!.) 

SPECIALTY  AND   SPECIALITY, 

New  York,  Decei:\.lt,i  17,  1574. 
Sir,  —  In  your  next  criticism  on  words  used  in  improper 
forms  will  you  not  take  into  consideration  specialty,  now  so 
general  in  use  for  speciality  ?  Our  language  has  need  of 
both  forms  to  express  different  ideas,  as  it  has  for  realty, 
reality,  personalty,  personality.  So,  referring  to  a  peculiar 
character  of  obligation  known  in  law,  we  call  it  a  "  spe- 
cialty," as  Shakespeare  and  the  law  writers  did  ;  but  in 
speaking  of  a  special  pursuit  or  a  merchandising  in  one 
article,  we  should  say  "  speciality."  Before  the  publication 
of  the  1859  (quarto)  edition  of  Webster's  Dictionary  "  spe- 
ciality "  was  the  only  form  in  use  to  express  the  idea  of  an 
occupation  limited  to  one  object.  I  have  met  with  it  thus 
in  books  published  by  all  the  leading  publishers,  some  as 
far  back  as  1828,  and  in  no  single  instance,  till  after  1859, 
was  it  written  "  specialty  "  in  this  sense.  I  have  also  been 
familiar  with  it  in  speech  since  1845,  and  the  change  in  pro- 
nunciation was  not  until  after  1859.  That  it  was  an  error 
or  oversight  of  the  editor  of  the  dictionary  in  confounding 
the  two  forms,  and  giving  only  one,  is  evident  from  the  in- 
troduction into  the  recent  quarto  edition  of  that  work  of  the 
other  form,  "  speciality,"  with  numerous  extracts  from  the 
best  writers  showing  its  prevalent  use.  Still,  in  the  face  of 
this,  the  newspapers  continue  the  corrupt  form,  and  in  cod' 
versation  it  is  fast  supplanting  the  four-syllabled  word.  One 
does  not  like  to  be  peculiar  in  the  use  of  a  word  that  intel 
ligent  people  speak  differently,  and  there  is  something  pe 
dantic  in  frequently  explaining  why  we  pronounce  a  word 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      476 

JifEerently  from  the  general  use.  As  "  speci.'ility,"  the 
word  conforms  to  the  rule  of  our  language  in  the  formation 
of  nouns  from  adjectives  ending  in  al,  as  fartial-ity,  venal- 
ity, temporal-ity,  and  a  hundred  others.  Thei-e  are  only 
three  or  four  exceptions.  I  can  give  you  many  proofs  of 
the  correctness  of  the  foregoing  views  if  desired. 

Admiring  the  good  fight  you  are  making  for  our  noble 
language, 

I  am  truly  yours,  S.  H.  T. 

Without  venturing  to  give  a  decided  opinion  against 
this  correspondent,  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  the  valid- 
ity of  the  distinction  which  he  Las  drawn.  Usage 
may,  if  it  will,  draw  that  distinction,  and  thus  gain  a 
word  for  the  expression  of  a  modification  of  an  idea. 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  doubt  whether  an  attempt 
to  do  so  has  ever  been  made.  Specialty  and  special- 
ity seem  rather  to  be  two  forms  of  the  same  word, 
in  the  latter  of  which  the  i  is  merely  a  connecting 
vowel.  Classical  Latin  has  no  corresponding  noun ; 
but  in  medigeval  Latin  we  have  specialifas^  and  the 
French  word,  formed  upon  the  accusative  specialita- 
tem,  is  spScialite.  This  would  seem  to  show  that 
speciality  is  etymologically  the  proper  form.  But 
there  is  no  question,  I  believe,  that  specialty  is  much 
the  older  English  form,  —  older  by  two  or  three  cent- 
uries than  sp>eciality  ;  and  when  the  latter  appeared 
it  does  not  seem  to  have  carried  with  it  any  discrimi- 
Uating  power. 

A  specialty  in  law  is  merely  a  contract  for  a  par- 
ticular, specified,  or  special  purpose,  in  contradistinc- 
tion from  a  simple  contract ;  and  the  same  or  a  simi- 
lar idea  seems  to  be  conveyed  when  the  word,  used 
m  either  form,  is  applied  to  something  to  which  a 
person  has  given,  or  professes  to  give,  special  atten- 


476  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

tion.  Thus  in  Paris  there  is  at  least  one  restaurant 
where,  with  an  eye  to  the  inborn  cravings  of  the 
"  American  "  stomach,  there  may  be  seen  cards  bear- 
ing the  comfortable  words,  "  SpScialite  de  hucwit 
cakes,^''  "  SpecialitS  de  pumpkin  pie.'^  Johnson  gives 
bctli  forms  as  one  word  ;  and  among  succeeding  dic- 
tionary makers  no  one  has  drawn  any  distinction  in 
meaning  between  them.  Webster,  in  his  edition  of 
1828  (the  last  which  he  issued),  gives  the  older  form 
specialty  only.  Shakespeare  by  no  means  confines 
himself  to  the  use  of  the  word  in  its  legal  sense. 
For  example :  — 

"  Troy,  3'et  upon  bis  basis,  bad  been  down. 
And  the  great  Hector's  sword  bad  lack'd  a  master, 
But  for  these  instances : 
The  specialty  oy"»'M/e  hath  been  neglected,"  etc. 

(Troilus  and  Cressida,  i.  3,  1.  75.) 

Here  specialty  means  particular  thing,  and  has  al« 
most  the  force  of  item. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  does  seem  to  be  in 
regard  to  these  forms  a  fair  opportunity  for  that  dis- 
crimination which  usage  sometimes  usefully  makes 
between  words  originally  synonymous.  Reality  cer- 
tainly does  now  mean  something  very  different  from 
realty  ;  but  the  latter  is  purely  a  law  term.  So  with 
K)ersonality  and  personalty^  spirituality  and  spiritu- 
Hty.  But  royalty  means  both  the  quality  of  being 
loyal,  kingliness,  and  that  which  is  paid  to  the  king 
ji  virtue  of  his  seignorage,  and  hence  to  the  owner 
of  a  right  for  its  use.  The  distinction  proposed  would 
give  us,  for  example,  rascality^  the  quality  of  being 
rascally,  and  rascalty,  the  concrete  mass  of  those  who 
have  that  quality  ;  although  that  might  perhaps  be 
better  expressed  by  rascalry.  We  might  also  have 
teveralty  and  severality,  casualty  and  easuality ;  th« 


DOUBTFUL  PHRASES,  OLD  AND  NEW.      477 

former  representing  the  concrete  thing,  the  latter  the 
abstract  quality.  The  suggestion  that  specialty  and 
speciality  should  be  used  discriminatively  is  worthy 
of  consideration  ;  but  the  question  which  it  raises  is 
one  which  might  better  be  submitted  to  Professor 
Haldeman,  who  has  given  so  much  attention  to  the 
affixes  of  our  language. 

GOOD  USAGE  VERSUS  BAD  SENSE. 

There  is  a  very  common  use  of  what  the  gramma- 
rians call  the  perfect  infinitive  (for  example,  to  have 
loved)  which  is  so  incongruous  as  to  be  nonsensical. 
Examples  are  found  in  the  following  passages  from 
Black's  charming  "  Princess  of  Thule  :  "  — 

"  He  [Mosenberg]  would  have  liked  to  have  shown  off 
Sheilah  to  some  of  his  friends."  (Page  272,  Harper's  edi- 
tion.) 

"  One  friend  she  had  who  would  have  rejoiced  to  have 
been  of  the  least  assistance  to  her."     (Page  282.) 

Now,  it  is  very  plain  that  what  Mosenberg  would 
have  liked,  at  a  certain  time,  was  to  show  off  at  that 
time  the  charming  Sheilah  to  his  friends  who  were 
present  at  that  time.  He  could  not  have  liked  at 
that  time  to  have  shown  her  off.  It  might  be  prop- 
erly said  of  him  at  an  after-time  that  to  have  shown 
her  off  at  the  former  time  would  have  given  hira 
pleasure  in  the  recollection.  So,  Sheilah's  frien<1 
would  have  been  glad  to  he  of  assistance  to  her, 
The  first  part  of  the  assertion  in  such  sentences  is 
ogically  incongruous  with  the  second. 

The  error  in  question  is  very  common,  even  among 
^ood  writers,  and  is  not  at  all  new.  The  absurdity 
oi  the  construction  is  made  yet  more  apparent  than 


i78  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

it  is  in  the  examples  from  "The  Princess  of  Thule' 
by  the  following  from  Mr.  Mallock's  "  New  Repub- 
lic :  "  — 

*'  Leslie  was  going  to  have  spoken."     (Book  I.,  chap,  iv.) 
"  Mr.  Luke  was  going  to  have  answered."     (Book  lU^ 
chap,  iii.) 

Leslie  could  not  be  going  to  have  spoken  ;  he  was 
going  to  speak;  Mr.  Luke  was  going  to  answer.  The 
misconstruction  here  becomes  ridiculous  by  the  im- 
mediate juxtaposition  of  a  present,  or  indefinite,  par- 
ticiple (jgoing^.,  asserting  immediate  future  action, 
with  a  verbal  phrase  implying  completed  action  (to 
have  spoken).  The  logical  construction,  however,  is 
exactly  the  same  as  if  (in  Mr.  Black's  phrase)  Mr. 
Mallock  had  written,  "  Leslie  would  have  begun  to 
have  spoken  ;  "  "  Mr.  Luke  would  have  begun  to 
have  answered." 

As  to  the  length  of  time  that  this  misconstruction 
has  obtained,  even  among  writers  of  high  repute,  it  is 
three  hundred  years  and  more  ;  during  which  time, 
indeed,  it  has  been  the  usage  of  the  best  writers  in 
England.  I  remember  it  in  Latimer's  sermons  (A.  D. 
15^2),  but  cannot  now  put  my  finger  upon  the  pas- 
sages. Here  are,  however,  a  few  examples  ready  at 
hand,  which,  with  those  given  above,  will  show  its 
orevalence  among  good  and  highly  educated  writers 
for  three  centuries  :  — 

♦'  Hadit  thou  been  here  to  have  heard  how  I  spurred  the 
wench  with  incantations."  (Heywood,  Fair  Maid  of  th*? 
Exchange,  Act  L,  Scene  2.) 

"  ....  it  woidd  have  made  your  ladyship  have  snng  noth 
bg  but  merry  jigs."  (Middleton,  Father  Ilubburd's  Tales 
Works,  v.  569.) 

".  .  .  .  and  you  ivould  have  brok".  into  iufiuife  laughtel 


DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,    OLD    AND    NEW.  479 

.  .  .  to  have  seen  how  quickly  the  muff  swallowed  her 
hand  again."     (The  same,  page  593.) 

"I  could  have  been  content  to  have  honoured  him."  (Shir- 
ley, The  Young  Admiral,  Act  I.,  Scene  1.) 

''  This  might  very  well  have  disposed  his  Majesty  to  have 
hastened  his  march  to  Oxford."  (Clarendon,  History  of  the 
Rebellion,  Book  VIIL,  page  542,  ed.  1839.) 

"  Wee  were  both  very  unwilling  to  have  gon  in  regard  of 
that  concours  of  people  at  Westminster."  (Sir  W.  Wal- 
ler's Vindication,  page  105.) 

"  Under  these  circumstances  it  would  have  been  idle  for 
the  crown  to  have  expected  aid,"  etc.  (Buckle,  History  of 
Civilization,  vol.  iii.,  chap,  i.) 

In  all  these  passages,  and  in  all  cases  of  the  mis- 
use of  which  they  are  examples,  the  error  is  in  the 
use  of  have  and  a  definite  participle  instead  of  the  in- 
finitive, when  the  thought  which  is  to  be  expressed 
is  indefinite  and  contingent.  Logical  congruity  re- 
quires :  "  It  would  have  been  idle  for  the  crown  to 
expect  aid  ;  "  "  Hadst  thou  been  here  to  hear  how  I 
spurred  the  wench,"  etc. 

The  fact  that  the  misconstruction  here  pointed  out, 
and  which  I  am  sure  that  no  one  will  now  defend, 
has  the  support  of  the  usage  of  the  best  English 
writers  from  the  earliest  years  of  modern  English  to 
the  present  day  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  truth 
that  even  the  best  and  longest  continued  usage  is  not 
ftnii  should  not  be  an  absolute  law  in  language.  The 
best  usage  may  have  been  wrong. 

This  muddle  of    thought  and    consequent  miscon- 
struction must  not  be  confounded  with  a  use  of  the 
game   form  in   a  present  reference  to   a    past   time. 
Thus,  in  "  The  Princess  of  Thule,"  we  have  this  sen 
*ence :  — 


480  EVERY-DAY    ENGLISH. 

"  I  should  like  to  have  seen  the  old  woraau  before  she 
died."     (Page  418.) 

Here  the  speaker  expresses  a  present  wish,  indeed  ; 
but  that  wish  may  reasonably  be  either  for  something 
to  come  or  for  something  unattained  in  the  past ;  and 
it  is  the  latter.  There  is  no  logical  inconsistency  be- 
tween the  two  parts  of  this  assertion.  If  the  assertion 
had  been  with  reference  to  time  past,  the  sentence 
should  properly  have  been,  "  I  sJiould  have  liked  to 
see  the  old  woman  before  she  died."  But  there  is  no 
time  of  which  the  assertion,  "  I  should  have  liked  to 
have  seen  the  old  woman,"  etc.,  is  consistent  with  rea- 
son. 

This  is  one  illustration  of  the  rationale  of  the  con- 
struction of  the  English  sentence.  Some  people  may 
call  it  grammar ;  and  so  they  might  call  it  Freema- 
sonry, and  with  as  much  reason.  It  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  forms  of  words,  or  with  their  dependent 
relations. 

"  FEELING  BAD  "   AND   "  FEELING  BADLY." 

Upon  hardly  any  other  point  have  I  received  so 
many  letters  of  inquiry  as  upon  the  very  trivial  one 
whether  it  is  proper  to  say,  "  I  feel  bad  "  or  "  I  feel 
badly."  I  thought  that  I  had  said  all  that  I  could  be 
expected  to  say  about  it,  and  that  it  was  dismissed 
forever.  But  the  inquiries  continue  at  brief  intervals, 
and  seem  to  be  made  by  persons — ladies  invariably 
—  who  are  quite  ignorant  that  I  have  said  my  little 
say  about  the  little  matter.  And  now  two  come  to- 
gether, one  of  which  is  made  in  such  a  tone  of  pitiful 
t)erplexity  that  I  have  not  the  heart  to  pass  it  by  un- 
noticed. 

Briefly,  then,  it  is  right  to  use  bad  in  regard  to  feel 


DOUBTFUL   PHRASES,  OLD   AND   NEW.  481 

Lng  or  being,  and  hadly  in  regard  to  doing.  For  ex- 
ample, "That  was  done  very  badly,  and  I  feel  very 
bad  about  it,"  or,  "  I  have  behaved  badly,  and  I  feel 
bad  about  it,"  —  not,  "  I  feel  badly." 

As  regards  physical  ills,  we  say,  for  example,  "  My 
head  aches  badly  this  morning,"  but,  "  My  head  is 
very  bad  this  morning ;  "  or,  "  My  head  feels  very 
bad,"  etc. ;  not,  "  My  head  is  badly,"  or  "  feels  badly." 
Speaking  generally  of  health  or  physical  condition, 
we  say,  "  I  feel  ill,"  or,  "I  feel  sick;"  not,  "I  feel 
bad."  That,  although  permissible  and  quite  right  as 
to  mere  form,  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  in  the  best 
style  of  English.  When  we  are  in  low  spirits  we  say 
that  we  feel  blue,  not  that  we  feel  bluely.  And  we 
say  that  the  grass  looks  green  and  that  the  day  looks 
bright,  not  that  the  one  looks  greenly  and  the  other 
brightly.  The  verbs  in  these  cases  express  seeming 
or  being  or  feeling.  When  we  speak  of  doing  we 
use  an  adverb,  thus  :  "  That  woman  dresses  badly ;  " 
but  speaking  of  the  result  we  say,  that  is,  we  may 
say,  "  Her  dress  always  looks  bad." 

When  we  say  that  "  the  grass  looks  green,"  "  I  feel 
blue,"  we  merely  express  a  fact  of  perception  ;  we 
say  that  something  seems  thus  or  so,  —  that  the  grass 
seems  green  to  us,  that  we  seem  blue  to  ourselves ; 
that  is,  have  a  consciousness  of  depression  which  in 
whimsical  metaphor  we  call  feeling  blue.  On  th© 
other  hand,  when  we  say  that  a  woman  dresses  badly, 
or  that  the  air  bites  keenly,  we  say  that  something 
is  done. 

Now  as  to  the  use  of  feel  with  a  word  expressing 
condition  or  appearance,  the  whole  analogy  of  the  lan- 
guage shows  that  the  latter  word  should  be  an  adjec- 
tive, and  not  an  adverb.  For  example  :  "  I  feel  sad," 
31 


482  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

not,  "  I  feel  sadly ;  "  "I  feel  glad,"  not,  "  I  feel 
gladly  ;  "  "  I  feel  sick,"  not,  "  I  feel  sickly  ;  "  "  I  feel 
sorry,"  not,  "  I  feel  sorrily  ;  "  "I  feel  wretched,"  not, 
"T  feel  wretchedly;"  "I  feel  happy,"  not,  "I  feel 
happily  ;  "  "I  feel  sinful,"  not,  "  I  feel  sinfully,"  and 
BO  forth  through  all  the  vocabulary  of  seeming  and 
condition.  I  can  see  no  reason  why  the  adjective  bad 
should  be  a  solitary  exception  to  this  universal  rule. 

A  little  observation,  a  little  reflection,  and,  above 
all,  a  little  continuance  in  the  use  of  "  I  feel  bad," 
will,  I  think,  determine  the  question  in  its  favor  with 
any  doubter  who  does  not,  on  the  one  side,  take  a 
parsing,  pedagogish  view  of  language,  or,  on  the 
other,  regard  it  from  the  point  of  prim  feminine  prej« 
udice.  For  I  suspect  that  the  doubting  dames  who 
call  upon  me  in  vain  to  defend  and  confirm  them  in 
their  suspicion  of  bad  fail  to  perceive  the  real  cause 
of  their  affright,  which  is  this  :  The  woi'd  bad  conveys 
a  sense  of  the  lack  of  goodness  and  of  soundness, 
either  physical  or  moral,  as  the  case  may  be.  We  say 
a  bad  man  or  a  bad  egg ;  and  usage  has  transferred, 
by  metaphor,  the  idea  of  physical  unsavoriness  (the 
radical  meaning  of  bad^  in  the  egg  to  moral  qualities 
in  the  man.  By  a  bad  man  we  mean  a  man  who  is 
morally  bad ;  by  a  bad  egg^  one  that  is  physically 
corrupt.  But  the  two  conditions  have  no  real  con- 
nection with  each  other,  and  only  a  figurative  like- 
ness. A  morally  good  man  may  feel  bad  physically. 
His  physical  condition  may  be  really  more  or  less 
like  that  of  the  egg  (happily  unconscious  of  its  bad- 
ness), —  that  is,  deteriorated,  —  and  of  this  he  may 
be  conscious,  and,  being  thus  conscious,  he  feels  bad. 
Again,  if  he  has  done  what  he  should  not  have  done- 
oir  if  he  has  done  badly  what  he  should  have  dona 


DOUBTFUL    PHRASES,   OLD    AND   NEW.  483 

he  is,  in  like  manner,  conscious  of  defect,  of  deterio- 
ration, and  he  feels  bad,  there  being  again  a  metaphor- 
ical change  in  the  use  of  the  word.  For,  in  the  phrase 
*'  I  feel  bad,"  bad  has  not  the  sense  which  it  has  in  the 
phrase  "  a  bad  man,"  nor  does  its  meaning  come  from 
the  sense  of  the  word  in  that  phrase.  The  man  feels 
bad  just  as  he  feels  glad,  or  feels  sad,  or  feels  sorry,  or 
feels  happy.  He  does  not  feel  that  he  is  a  bad  man, 
any  more  than  a  boy,  when  he  says  that,  for  any  rea- 
son, "  he  feels  good,"  means  that  he  feels  that  he  is  a 
good  boy.  For  in  the  phrases  a  good  man,  a  good  boy, 
a  good  woman,  the  meaning  has  by  long  usage  been 
confined  to  an  expression  of  the  moral  nature  of  the 
persons  to  whom  they  are  respectively  applied.  And 
— to  take  a  necessary  step  yet  further  in  this  direc- 
tion —  by  a  conventional  and  altogether  unwarranted 
usage  among  women  (who,  like  most  sects,  have  a 
tendency  to  a  cant  phraseology  of  their  own),  had,  as 
applied  by  women  to  a  woman,  refers  altogether  to 
her  sexual  conduct.  Among  women,  "a  bad  woman" 
means  an  unchaste  woman.  Hence  the  feminine  doubt 
as  to  the  use  of  the  phrase  "  I  feel  bad  ;  "  and  hence 
the  fact  that  all  the  letters  of  inquiry  that  I  have  re- 
ceived upon  the  subject  have  been  from  female  writers. 
But  there  is  in  this  esoteric  feminine  use  of  the  word 
lo  reason  why  had  should  be  an  exception  to  the  rule 
that,  governs  glad  and  sad  and  sorry^  and  all  other 
like  adjectives  in  the  language. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

CANT,  TRADING  AND  OTHER. 

Cant  and  slang  are  often  spoken  of  as  if  they  were 
the  same  thmg,  or  varieties  of  the  same  thing  ;  but 
they  are  not  so.  They  have,  indeed,  this  in  common 
that  they  are  both  deviations  from  the  correct,  normal 
use  of  language.  In  both,  words  are  used  in  a  sense 
which  does  not  rightly  belong  to  them,  either  ety- 
mologically  or  according  to  good  usage.  But  between 
them  there  is  this  great  difference,  that  cant  is  of  lim- 
ited and  slang  of  general  use ;  cant  words  and  phrases 
are  contrived  by  special  classes  for  their  own  special 
purposes  ;  slang  originates,  we  hardly  know  how  or 
why,  and  attains  more  or  less  vogue,  according  to  cir- 
cumstances which  have  general  application.  In  slang, 
humor  or  satire  is  more  or  less  an  element.  For 
example,  when  a  gentleman  who  is  inclined  to  talk 
somewhat  tediously  upon  a  subject  which  he  has  at 
heart,  but  about  which  his  hearers  are  not  much  in- 
clined to  hear,  is  told  to  "  hire  a  hall,"  he  is  gener- 
ally able  to  see  some  satire  and  the  others  some  humor 
in  the  recommendation.  Slang  has,  in  many  cases,  a 
pith  and  pungency  which  make  it  not  only  pardona- 
ble, but  tolerable.  It  often  expresses  a  feeling,  if  not  % 
thought,  of  the  passing  day,  which  could  not  be  so  for 
cibly  expressed  —  for  the  day  —  in  any  other  phrase 
ology.  It  is  generally  evanescent ;  but  sometimes  it 
endures  and  becomes  a  part  of  the  recognized  vocabu- 
.ary  of  a  language.     For  example,  the  woi-d  7nob  was 


CANT,  TRADING  AND  OTHER.         485 

originally  slang.  It  is  supposed  to  be  a  contraction, — 
the  first  syllable  of  mobile  vulgus  ;  a  scornful  phrase 
for  the  lowest  order  of  common  people.  Tandem^ 
also,  was  originally  a  slang  word.  It  is  Latin  for 
"  at  length  ;  "  but  as  applied  to  driving  two  horses  at 
length  instead  of  abreast,  it  is  just  such  Latin  as 
nunquam  animus  for  "  never  mind."  Another  slang 
word,  sivell,  meaning  grand,  fine,  pretentious,  is  now 
perceptibly  passing  into  the  recognized  vocabulary  of 
good  usage.  It  is  a  very  convenient  and  expressive 
■word,  and  is  used  now  by  the  best  speakers  of  Eng- 
lish without  hesitation.  It  can  hardly  fail  to  appear 
in  "  the  dictionary  "  of  the  next  generation. 

Cant  is  not  so  respectable  ;  and  yet  it  is,  on  the 
whole,  more  enduring.  It  appertains,  as  I  have  said, 
to  special  classes,  and  is  generally  offensive  to  those 
■who  do  not  belong  to  those  classes.  It  very  rarely 
passes  into  general  usage.  There  is  religious  cant 
and  trading  cant,  artists'  cant  and  thieves'  cant,  and 
there  is  the  cant  of  literature  and  even  of  science. 
Almost  every  occupation  has  its  cant,  Avhich  is  not 
very  well  understood  by  the  outside  world.  Women 
have  their  cant :  cant  of  the  household,  cant  of  so- 
ciety, cant  of  dress,  and,  finally  and  absolutely,  pure 
feminine  cant.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  venture  com- 
ment upon  the  last,  or  even  to  give  illustrations  of 
it.  Religious  cant  has  much  to  do  with  the  distaste 
which  many  sensible,  right  feeling,  and  not  irrelig- 
ious people  have  for  religious  affairs.  An  example 
of  a  religious  cant  phrase  in  very  common  use  is 
"  walk  and  conversation  "  Not  one  in  a  thousand  of 
those  who  use  it  knows  what  it  really  means.  They 
ase  it  thinking  that  in  it  "conversation"  means 
speech,  dail}^  talk.     Bat  it  really  means  association, 


486  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

social  habits ;  tlie  use  of  "  conversation  "  to  mean 
speech  being  of  very  modern  date,  —  much  later  than 
that  of  the  origin  of  the  phrase  "  walk  and  conversa- 
tion." 

In  a  community  like  ours,  in  which  trade  is  the  oc- 
cnpation  of  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  people,  trad- 
i/ig  cant  attains  a  vogue  more  general  than  any  other, 
and  reall}^  works  its  way  into  a  somewhat  general 
acceptation.  The  use  of  balance  for  rest,  remainder, 
residue,  what  is  left,  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  an 
example  of  this  adoption  of  trading  cant.  I  shall  re- 
mark briefly  upon  some  other  cant  phrases,  which 
trade,  or  commerce,  or  finance,  has  introduced  to  our 
acquaintance. 

One  of  the  newest,  strangest,  and,  to  me,  most  in- 
comprehensible of  these  is  the  phrase  covered  into, 
as,  for  example,  "  covered  into  the  Treasury."  A 
few  years  ago  this  phrase  made  its  appearance  in  the 
newspapers,  and  was  instantly  caught  up  by  those 
who  did  not  know  what  it  meant,  but  supposed  it 
was  something  very  fine ;  and  they,  after  the  fashion 
of  such  people,  used  it  with  very  imposing  effect. 
We  heard,  and  still  hear,  of  the  vast  sums  being 
"  covered  into  the  Treasury."  Learned  Washington 
correspondents  write  it,  and  still  more  learned  legis- 
lators speak  it :  but  what  it  means  they,  like  the  old 
book-collector  in  regard  to  his  treasure,  do  not  care 
to  know.  I  have  often  been  asked  what  it  meant ;  I 
nave  often  asked  others,  men  familiar  all  their  lives 
with  financial  affairs  on  a  large  scale,  but  in  vain. 
Ko  one  could  tell.  It  seems  to  me  about  as  foolish 
and  unmeaning  an  assemblage  of  words  as  I  ever  saw 
or  heard.  It  is,  I  believe,  already  beginning  to  pass 
out  of  use.    It  may  well  be  cast  into  the  waste-basket 


CANT,  TRADING  AND  OTHER.         487 

of  oblivion,  to  torment  some  unhappy  verbal  critic 
who,  in  time  to  come,  shall  be  called  upon  to  explain 
the  "  American  "  (for  it  is  not  English)  phraseology 
of  to-day.i 

Another  phrase  of,  I  believe,  quite  as  recent  origin, 
and  which  has  come  into  more  general  use,  is  rules 
high,  or  low,  as  the  case  may  be.  Thus  in  the  London 
"  Truth  :  "  "  The  price  of  what  are  termel  first-class 
investment  securities  rules  too  high."  This  use  of 
rules  seems  to  me  sheer  cant,  and  cant  which  those 
who  use  it  would  be  puzzled  reasonably  to  interpret. 
I  have  heard  an  attempt  to  explain  it  as  meaning  that 
the  price  of  bonds,  land,  or  what  not,  is  high  or  lowi 
as  a  rule.  But  a  little  observation  and  thought  will 
discover  that  this  is  not  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  as 
it  is  used.  For  it  is  applied  to  a  single  article  and  as 
to  the  future.  I  have  again  and  again  heard,  "That 
article  will  rule  higher  next  spring,"  and,  "  Real  es- 
tate will  rule  higher  after  the  election."  The  phrase 
is  a  mere  piece  of  affectation,  the  result,  possibly,  of 
a  blunder  at  first  on  the  part  of  some  man  rich 
enough  to  buy  the  flattery  of  imitation,  and  then  of  a 
desire  to  seem  to  have  at  command  the  phraseology  of 
the  finest  financial  circles.     Such  phrases  as  this  are 

1  A  correspondent  who  read  the  remarks  above  on  their  first  publica- 
tion kindly  furnished  me  with  the  following  explanation  of  the  phrase  in 
question :  "  '  Covered  into  the  Treasury '  is  a  phrase  expressive  of  the  trans- 
fer of  an  unexpended  balance  of  an  appropriation  back  into  the  Treasury, 
and  the  final  balancing  and  canceling  of  the  account.  The  phrase  was 
originally  '  Covering  [the  item,  in  a  balance-sheet]  by  a  transfer  of  the 
amount  into  the  Treasury.'  The  '  covering  '  being  a  legitimate  use  of  the 
vord,  as  '  the  appropriation  covers  the  cost,'  that  is,  balances  and  cancels 
pach  the  other;  or,  the  profits  of  the  business  cover  the  expenses.  The 
4iterniediate  words  of  the  phrase,  'by  a  transfer  of  the  amount,'  being 
ilimniated  as  redundant,  the  word  cove7-  in  this  use  really  'ncludes  the 
idea  of  transfer."  This  is  manifestly  satisfactory  to  my  correspondent 
»nd  may  be  so  to  others  ;  but  it  only  makes  it  m;re  clear  to  me  that  tb« 
*hrase  is  cant,  pure  and  simple. 


488  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

of  a  very  different  sort  from  the  broker's  "  call  "  and 
"  long  "  and  "  short  "  and  "  put  "  and  "  spread,"  and 
80  forth.  These  are  honest,  unpretending  cant,  — as 
honest  and  unpretending  as  the  cant  of  thieves  ;  they 
are  used  for  convenience,  and  make  no  pretension  to 
be  anything  else  than  a  trouble-saving  contrivance, 
intended  only  for  those  who  have  invented  them. 

Line  is  used  in  a  canting  way,  chiefly  by  jobbera 
and  retailers.  These  will  not  only  say,  but  write 
and  print,  that  they  have  "  the  finest  line  of  spring 
goods  "  ever  seen  in  this  city.  I  have  in  vain  en- 
deavored to  surmise  the  meaning  of  line  thus  used 
and  have  asked  an  explanation  of  it  from  those  who 
thus  use  it,  —  equally  in  vain.  It  will  be  seen  at  once 
that  it  is  not  used  with  the  meaning  that  it  has  in 
the  question,  "  Any  other  article  in  our  line  ?  "  where 
line  means  line  of  business.  But  a  line  of  goods,  — 
what  is  it  ?  Not  goods  in  cases  arranged  in  a  line, 
for  it  is  applied  to  a  trader's  whole  stock,  as  "  A,  B 
&  Co.  have  a  fine  line  of  goods  ;  "  to  a  part  of  it,  as 
"  D,  C  &  Co.  have  a  fine  line  of  woolens  ;  "  and  to  a 
part  of  a  part,  for  you  will  see  placards  on  short 
rows  or  little  heaps  of  goods,  "  All  goods  on  this 
line  $5."     And  yet  in  a  newspaper  before  me  I  see  a 

.laming  advertisement  announcing  that  Messrs. • 

&  Co.  "  have  just  received  a  full  line  of  kid  gloves." 
\t  is  very  meaningless  cant. 

So  is  another  phrase,  of  very  recent  origin,  closed 
vut,  which  is,  I  believe,  a  pure  Americanism.  I 
do  not  know,  at  least,  of  its  use  elsewhere  than  in 
New  York  and  the  little  New  Yorks.  I  have  in  vain 
asked  for  a  reasonable  explanation  of  this  phrasa 
A  door  may  be  closed,  and,  metaphorically,  an  ac« 
count  or  a  sale  may  be  closed.    Goods  may  be  turned 


CANT,  TRADING  AND  OTHER.         489 

out-of"doors.  But  how  anything  can,  in  the  proper 
meaning  of  the  words,  be  "  closed  out,"  I  have  found 
no  one  able  to  explain.  Nor  have  I  even  been  able 
to  get  any  one  to  tell  me  what  he  thought  he  meant 
by  closing  out  goods  other  than  selling  all  of  them. 
And  yet  it  has,  I  suppose,  to  certain  people  a  cer- 
tain meaning,  which  they  might  much  better  express 
rightly.  In  other  words  it  is  cant.  The  adolescent 
vendor  who  stands  on  the  street  corner  and  cries,  as 
I  have  heard  him  cry  scores  of  times,  "  Heah  you  ah  ! 
cul-losin 'em  out ;  two  dollah  scahfs  faw  foh  shill'n," 
uses  the  phrase  in  just  the  same  sense  in  which  it 
was  used  by  the  very  jobber  who  "  closed  out  the 
lot "  to  him. 

Collect  has  in  trade  come  to  be  mere  cant.  A 
young  man  will  enter  an  office  and  ask,  "  Can  I  col- 
lect X,  Y  &  Co.'s  bill  ?  "  or  he  will  be  told  by  his 
employers  to  go  tut  and  "  collect  that  bill."  Now, 
you  cannot  collect  one  bill  any  more  than  you  can 
assemble  one  man.  To  collect  is  to  gather  together. 
The  idea  of  numbers  is  essential  to  that  of  collection. 
You  may  collect  the  money  for  a  number  of  bills 
(if  you  can)  ;  but  it  may  be  said  without  hypercriti- 
cism  that  to  speak  of  collecting  one  bill  is  to  use 
language  with  ridiculous  absurdity.  This,  too,  is  a 
novelty,  and,  I  believe,  an  Americanism.  I  doubt 
that  it  is  a  generation  old,  and  I  have  never  heard 
it,  or  met  with  evidence  of  its  use,  in  England.  Con- 
nected with  it  is  a  dreadful  canting  formula,  "  C.  O. 
D."  (meaning  either  collect  on  delivery  or  cash  on 
delivery),  which  has  come  to  be  regarded,  not  as 
in  abbreviation,  but  as  a  phrase,  and  is  pronounced 
«e«,  oh,  dee  ;  "  and  Messrs.  Shoddy  &  Co.  will  call 
tttention   to   their  "  elegant  stock  of  C.  O.  D    fall 


190  EVEKY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

and  winter  clothing."  Entirely  apart  from  the  ter- 
ror which  the  idea  of  paj^ment  on  delivery  carries  to 
the  general  mind,  this  canting  cipher  has  become  one 
of  the  nuisances  of  modern  trading  language. 

Invest  used  without  an  object,  as,  "  I  think  I  shall 
invest,"  "  He  invested  in  governments,"  is,  if  not 
traders'  cant,  a  gross  misuse,  brought  into  vogue  by 
the  traders  in  mone3^  A  man  may  invest  money  or 
other  interests  in  this  or  that  enterprise,  security,  or 
business;  but  he  cannot  simply  invest,  the  verb  be- 
ing one  that  requires  an  object.  Some  people  seem 
to  think  that  it  is  either  fine  or  funny  to  use  the 
word  in  this  objectless  way.  Thus,  I  find  in  the  Lon- 
don "  Truth,"  "  A  few  days  ago  I  invested  in  '  Helen's 
Babies.'  "  Why  not,  I  bought  the  book  ?  What  is 
gained  by  the  misuse  of  the  other  word  ? 

I  cannot  but  regard  a  certain  use  of  the  plural,  as 
"  ales,  wines,  teas,"  "  woolens,  silks,  cottons,"  as  a  sort 
of  traders'  cant,  and  to  many  persons  it  is  very  offen- 
sive. What  reason  is  there  for  a  man  who  deals  in 
malt  liquor  announcing  that  he  has  a  fine  stock  of 
ales  on  hand,  when  what  he  has  is  a  stock  of  ale  of 
various  kinds  ?  What  he  means  is  that  he  has  Bass's 
ale,  and  Burton  ale,  and  Albany  ale,  and  others  ; 
out  these  are  only  different  kinds  of  one  thing.  One 
might  as  well  talk  of  waters,  meaning  Croton  wa- 
ter and  spring  water.  True,  we  have  in  the  Bible 
(Kings  or  Chronicles,  I  don't  remember  which  ;  and, 
O  criticaster,  I  don't  think  it  worth  my  while  to 
look),  "  Are  not  Abana  and  Pharpar,  rivers  of  Da- 
mascus, better  than  all  the  waters  of  Israel  ?  "  But 
this  does  not  speak  of  the  water  of  Abana  and  that 
df  Pharpar,  or  that  of  the  several  rivers  of  Judea^ 
as  various  "waters."     The  plural  is  used  as  it  is  iis 


CANT,   TRADING   ANI/   OTHER.  491 

"  the  waters  of  the  great  deep,"  and  in  a  hundred 
other  like  instances.  I  cannot  but  think  that  this 
use  of  the  pUiral,  although  it  is  no  novelty  and  has 
some  analogical  support,  comes  originally  of  preten- 
sion. It  was  thought  to  be  finer,  a  more  swell  thing, 
to  have  "  ales  and  wines"  to  sell  than  merely  ale  and 
wine.  We  never  hear  of  a  grocer's  having  "salts," 
"  molasseses,"  "  wheats,"  " flours,"  or  "breads,"  but 
properly  of  various  brands  or  kinds  of  those  things. 
And  so  we  should  hear  only  of  various  kinds  of  ale, 
wine,  woolen,  silk,  cotton,  and  so  forth. 

Apropos  of  this  point,  I  observed,  the  other  daj^  be- 
tween Fifth  and  Sixth  Avenues  up  town,  a  large  and 
flagrantly  elegant  sign,  on  which  it  was  announced, 
firrt,  that  families  would  be  supplied  with  rockaways  ; 
but  I  saw  no  sign  of  any  family  carriage  of  that  kind. 
Next,  saddle-rocks  were  promised,  and  blue  points, 
and  finally  east  rivers,  and  all  "  from  our  own  beds." 
It  was  not  until  I  turned  the  corner  wondering  how 
rockaways  and  points  and  rocks  and  rivers  came  into 
"  our  own  beds,"  and  what  families  could  do  with  them, 
that  I  saw  any  intimation  what  these  extraordinary 
articles  of  family  supply  really  were  ;  and  then  it 
came  to  me  in  the  imperative  mood,  in  many  colors, 
"  Try  our  Fries."  I  did  not  do  so,  but  the  entreaty 
—  or  was  it  command  ? —  led  me  to  suspect  that  the 
word  "  oyster  "  was  lying  somewhere  near  by,  hid- 
den, it  might  be,  under  a  shell  or  in  a  bed ;  and  that 
the  solitary  s  that  rightfully  belonged  to  that  word 
had  been  made  to  do  quadruple  duty  by  being  ap- 
pended to  the  four  words  which  merely  described  what 
kinds  of  oysters  20uld  be  had.  Seriousl}^,  how  much 
easier  and  better  it  would  be  to  use  both  noun  and  ad- 
ective,  —  Rockaway,  Saddle-Rock,  Blue  Point,  and 


492  EVERY-DAY  ENGLISH. 

East  River  Oysters,  —  O  man  of  Wall  Street  1  for 
it  is  you  that  I  am  addressing.  For  when  you  talk 
of  buying  and  selling  "  governments  "  —  meaning 
not  the  ruling  powers  of  various  countries,  but  the 
bonds  or  securities  of  the  government  of  this  country 
or  of  some  other  —  you  put  yourself,  in  the  use  of 
language,  exactly  on  a  level  with  the  oysterman  who 
Bets  up  in  his  window,  "  Try  our  Fries." 

Another  form  of  trading  cant  appears  constantly 
in  business  correspondence  :  "  Your  favor  of  the  1st 
inst.  is  received,  and  conte^its  rioted^  The  affectation 
and  awkwardness  of  the  phrase  are  plain  enough 
without  a  word  of  comment ;  and  at  any  rate  of  what 
use  is  it?  What  meaning  has  it,  to  satisfy  any  rea- 
sonable creature  ?  Why  should  one  reasonable  creat- 
ure address  it  to  another  ?  Of  course  the  contents 
of  a  business  letter  addressed  to  a  business  man  are 
noted  by  him.  He  might  just  as  well  inform  his  cor- 
respondent that  his  letter  had  been  opened,  for  it  is 
opened  only  that  its  contents  may  be  noted. 

Of  a  like  sort  is  the  phrase  commonly  used  in  mer- 
cantile correspondence  when  a  check  is  sent,  or,  to 
use  the  elegant  phrase,  "a  remittance  is  made." 
This  is,  "  Please  find  iyiclosed  our  check, "  etc.  A 
more  ridiculous  use  of  words,  it  seems  to  me,  there 
ould  not  be.  I  heard  its  absurdity  remarked  upon 
*ong  ago  by  thorough-bred  merchants  and  Wall  Street 
men.  How  much  more  natural,  simpler,  better  in 
every  way,  is  the  phrase  in  the  opening  of  a  letter 
which  I  received  only  yesterday  from  a  publishing 
house  of  the  highest  standing :  "  We  inclose  herewith 
our  check,"  etc.     I  thought  it  admirable. 

One    of    the    merchants  who  laughed  at  "  Please 
find,"  etc.,  scoffed  at  another  bit  of  mercantile  cant 


CANT,   TRADING   AND   OTHER.  493 

Our  Mr.  So  and  So.  It  seems  to  me  that  bis  ridi- 
cule was  well  bestowed.  If  a  bouse  is  composed  of 
Mr.  Jobn  A  and  Mr.  James  B,  with  Mr.  Charles  C 
as  an  associate,  and  is  known  as  A,  B  &  Co.,  it  is 
Burely  quite  sufficiently  explicit  if  in  their  corre- 
spondence they  call  the  principals  or  the  "  Co."  by 
their  simple  names,  without  dubbing  them  "  Our  Mr. 
John  A,"  or  "  Our  Mr  Charles  C."  Affectation 
again,  ending  in  cant. 

I  intended  to  remark  upon  some  other  forms  of 
cant,  among  them  the  cant  of  journalism,  in  which, 
for  example,  our  special  has  become  a  mystery  to  the 
outside  world,  meaning  sometimes  a  man,  a  corre- 
spondent, sometimes  a  telegram ;  in  which  inter- 
preted and  rendered  take  the  place  of  acted,  played, 
or  sung ;  in  which  a  piece  of  music  is  called  a  num- 
ber, and  skill  in  art  is  called  technique.  The  last  has 
become  a  part  of  the  stock  cant  of  "  fashionable  "  art 
gabble.  Every  "lady  pianiste"  is  ready  to  go  into 
raptures  over  her  favorite  performer's  "  splendid  teck- 
neek."  I  forbear,  however,  going  further  into  this 
subject,  and  leave  it  with  merely  a  caution  against 
the  use  of  stereotyped  conventional  phrases,  which 
are  sure  to  become  cant. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

ELEGANT  ENGLISH. 

Some  of  my  readers  I  know,  and  many  more  I  sus- 
pect, have  the  notion  that  the  main  purpose  of  what 
I  have  written  upon  hinguage  is  to  teach  people  to 
gpeak  elegant  English  ;  or  I  should  rather  say  to  help 
or  to  lead,  or,  more  elegantly,  to  induce  people  so  to 
speak.  For  to  presume  to  teach  any  one  English,  or 
to  impart  to  him  any  knowledge  in  regard  to  it,  no 
matter  how  much  more  ignorant  he  may  be  than  you 
are,  is,  I  have  some  reason  to  suspect,  an  offense  to 
be  resented  even  with  rudeness.  But  there  could 
not  be  a  greater  mistake  than  that  which  I  have  men- 
tioned. Among  my  prayers  as  to  deliverance  from 
the  little  miseries  of  life  is  that  I  may  be  defended 
from  elegant  speaking.  Indeed,  elegance  of  any  kind 
has  become  rather  oppressive.  One  of  the  curses  of 
the  day  is  that  everybody  wishes  to  be  elegant,  —  ele- 
gant meaning  fine,  showy,  and  expensive  :  the  excep- 
tions being  a  few  people  who  are  content  to  live  their 
lives  according  to  their  own  standards  of  comfort,  of 
happiness,  and  of  beauty,  quite  indifferent  to  the  ad- 
miration, the  envy,  or  even  the  criticism   of  others. 

Elegance  in  language,  however,  although  it  is 
almost  a  modern  affectation,  is  not  so  much  sought 
after  now  as  it  was  in  the.  days  of  our  fathers  and 
grandfathers.  Language  seems  to  have  been  then 
regarded  as  something  to  be  thought  of  and  valued 
for  itself,  apart  from  the  thoughts  that  it  c(;nveyed 


ELEGANT    ENGLISH.  49o 

The  "  language  "  of  a  book,  or  a  play,  or  a  sermon 
was  spoken  of  with  praise  or  dispraise  ;  and  what  was 
meant  was  not  the  use  of  words,  or  the  construction 
of  the  sentences  as  to  sense  and  rhythm,  but  the 
words  themselves.  I  remember  meeting  in  my  early 
youth,  in  the  lobby  of  a  theatre  where  a  new  com- 
edy had  just  been  produced,  an  aged  actor  of  the  old 
Bchool,  very  polished  in  manner  and  somewhat  de- 
monstrative in  his  courtesy.  He  asked  me  what  I 
thought  of  the  new  play.  I  replied  that  I  thought 
it  very  dull ;  that  the  situations  were  forced  and  the 
charjicters  of  the  personages  unnatural.  "  Well,  yes," 
he  replied,  "I  'm  inclined  to  think  you  're  right ;  but 
the  language  is  very  elegant ;  that  ought  to  save  it." 
I  remember  being  puzzled  as  to  what  he  could  mean 
by  the  language  being  elegant,  and  to  divine  why 
elegant  language  should  save  a  dull,  unnatural  play 
from  being  damned.  I  found  out  that  he  meant 
that  it  was  full  of  fine  words,  put  together  in  such  a 
way  that  they  had  an  effect  on  the  ear,  and  perhaps 
on  the  mind,  analogous  to  that  produced  on  the  eye 
by  fine  clothes  and  fine  furniture.  I  afterwards  re- 
marked this  same  admiration  of  words  by  themselves 
in  other  persons  of  his  period,  and  found  traces  of  it 
in  books. 

In  this  respect  there  has  been  a  reaction,  which 
during  the  past  generation  was  healthy  and  tended 
to  simplicity  of  speech,  and  to  a  disregard,  even  in 
poetry,  of  any  other  consideration  than  the  clear  and 
strong  utterance  of  thought.  Of  late,  however,  it 
has  gone  too  far,  and  has  brought  slang  into  use, 
even  in  good  society,  and  has  led  also  to  an  abbre- 
viated style  of  speech  and  of  writing,  which  is  al 
tDost  as  1  ad  as  slang,  and  in  some  cases  much  worse. 


496  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

Deliberate  elegance  in  language  is  now  the  sign 
either  of  an  extreme  of  pedantry  and  affectation,  or, 
more  generally,  of  inferior  social  and  intellectual  cul 
tare.  I  heard  of  a  woman,  who  was  engaged  to  ren- 
der some  chance  assistance  in  a  household,  who  in- 
formed her  employer  that  "  she  and  her  chil'n  hed 
ben  awful  sick;  but  they  went  into  the  country,  and 
they  resuscitated  dreadful."  The  good  woman  meant 
that  they  soon  got  well ;  but  not  content  with  simple 
language  that  would  have  satisfied  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
or  Shakespeare,  or  Lord  Bacon,  or  Goldsmith,  or 
Thackeray,  she  strove  after  elegance  in  speech,  with 
the  disastrous  result  above  recorded.  And  having 
been  rusticated  in  my  Freshman  year  for  some  of- 
fense against  college  discipline,  I  fell  among  some 
people  in  the  rural  part  of  Eastern  Pennsylvania  who 
were  so  very  elegant  in  their  language  that  they 
never  spoke  of  helping  you  to  anything  at  table,  but 
of  assisting  you  to  it ;  and  one  day,  my  hostess  ask- 
ing me  if  she  should  "  assist  me  to  some  sass,"  I, 
taken  rather  suddenly  by  this  dispensation  of  ele- 
gance, fell  into  such  a  fit  of  unseemly  laughter  that 
all  the  excuses  and  explanations  that  I  could  contrive 
did  not  quite  atone  for  my  involuntary  lapse  from 
good  manners,  and  there  was  a  constraint  at  that 
table  until  I  was  recalled  within  the  wholesome  in- 
fluence of  mingled  classics  and  college  slang. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  those  who  are  at  pains 
to  speak  elegantly  always  choose  a  longer  in  place 
of  a  shorter  word,  —  one  of  Latin  or  Greek,  instead 
of  one  of  purely  English,  origin.  They  also  avoid 
idioms,  those  family  traits  of  language,  and  —  when 
they  are  sufficiently  instructed  —  they  are  solicitous 
as  to  their  grammar,  and  talk  in  sentences  that  hav« 


ELEGANT   ENGLISH.  497 

an  air  of  being  uttered  to  be  parsed.  Prigs  and 
pedants  generally  speak  in  elegant  language.  For 
this  they  are  not  altogether  in  fault.  The  habit  is  a 
"  survival  "  of  the  school-teaching  of  the  last  genera- 
tion and  of  the  generation  before  the  last.  Indeed, 
elegant  English  may  be  said  to  have  come  into  vogue 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century.  It  was  one  of 
the  results  of  the  refining  influence  (much  needed)  of 
the  Queen  Anne  school  of  essayists,  supplemented 
by  the  tendency  to  inflation  ("  making  little  fishes 
talk  like  whales  ")  imparted  to  the  English  language 
by  Dr.  Johnson.  True,  thei'e  were  the  Euphuists  of 
the  Elizabethan  era  and  other  affecters  of  elegant 
speech,  some  of  whom  Shakespeare  has  satirized  ;  but 
these  were  very  few  in  number,  and  formed  a  small 
class  apart  by  themselves.  The  Euphuists  were  al- 
most a  sect  or  a  school,  and  it  was  not  until  about  a 
hundred  years  ago  that  elegance  of  language  became 
a  common  affectation. 

In  illustration  of  this  part  of  my  subject,  I  cite 
some  counsels  and  cautions  from  a  very  good  book  of 
its  kind,  published  about  fifty  years  ago  in  Boston, 
"  The  English  Teacher,  or  Private  Learner's  Guide," 
which  is  by  Isaac  Alger,  Jr.,  A.  M.,  who  designates 
himself,  further,  as  "  Teacher  of  Youth."  He  has  a 
chapter  on  purity  of  style,  which  he  well  defines  as 
consisting  in  the  use  of  such  words  and  such  construc- 
tions as  belong  to  the  idiom  of  the  language  which 
we  speak.  But  when  he  comes  to  particulars,  we, 
or  I  at  least,  cannot  so  readily  agree  with  him  ;  for 
he  says  that  all  such  words  and  phrases  as  the  follow- 
ing should  be  avoided  :  "  quoth  he,"  "  erewhile,"  "  I 
wist  not,"  "  behest."  and  "  self-same."  Now,  the 
first  three  of  tliese  would  sound  affected  in  common 

32 


498  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

talk,  or  in  a  newspaper  or  a  magazine  article,  for 
they  have  passed  out  of  our  every-day  English.  But 
there  is  no  better  English  than  they  are ;  and  in 
poetry  or  a  certain  kind  of  narrative  they  may  be 
used  with  good  effect,  and  are  so  used  by  the  best 
writers.  "  Self-same  "  is  in  commonest  use  by  the 
best  speakers  as  well  as  writers,  and  expresses  in 
two  English  syllables  an  idea  for  which  we  have  no 
other  word  than  the  four-syllabled  Romance  word 
"  identical,"  which  some  people,  but  hardly  the  best 
speakers  and  writers,  may  regard  as  the  more  elegant. 
Mr.  Alger  taught  the  youth  of  his  time,  also,  that 
they  should  not  say,  "  It  irhs  me  to  see  "  so  and  so, 
but  "  I  am  wearied  with  seeing,"  etc.  Such  elegance 
as  this  is  to  be  avoided  by  whoever  wishes  to  write 
or  to  speak  words  that  will  be  felt.  There  is  no 
better  English  than  "  it  irks  me,"  which  means  some- 
thing more  than  "  I  am  wearied."  No  good  speaker 
of  English  would  hesitate  to  use  the  former,  even  col- 
loquial Ij''. 

In  the  next  chapter,  "  On  Propriety,"  the  youth 
are  told  that  they  should  avoid  "  low  expressions," 
Buch  as  "  hurly-burly,"  "  topsy-turvy,"  "  currying  fa* 
v^or,"  and  "  dancing  attendance."  These,  however, 
are  picturesque  and  suggestive  phrases,  which  may 
be  used  with  effect  in  the  proper  place  (a  limitation 
which  applies  to  all  words  and  phrases),  and  which 
would  not  be  shunned  except  b}'-  sickly  squeamish- 
ness.  In  the  sentence,  "  Meantime,  the  Britons,  left  to 
shift  for  themselves,  were  forced  to  call  in  the  Saxons 
for  their  defense,"  the  phrase  "  left  to  shift  for  them- 
selves "  is  condemned  as  "  rather  low  "  and  too  famil- 
iar to  be  proper  in  a  grave  treatise.  Here  is  squeam. 
ishness   again.     "  Shift,"  as    used  in   this  sentence 


ELEGANT   ENGLISH.  499 

expresses  what  no  other  English  word  or  even  phrase 
will  quite  express,  and  is  in  place  even  in  the  grav- 
est historical  composition.  Macaulay  would  not  have 
hesitated  a  moment  about  using  it,  nor,  I  believe, 
would  Ruskin  now  hesitate,  nor  even  those  more  fas- 
tidious but  less  forcible  and  picturesque  writers.  Sir 
Arthur  Helps  and  Matthew  Arnold. 

I  cannot  do  better  than  to  contrast  some  other 
phrases  which  offended  Mr.  Alger  with  the  more 
elegant  ones  he  would  have  substituted  for  them. 

I  had  as  lief  do  it  myself  as  per-  I  ^uould  as  readily  do  it  niy&elf  aa 

Buade  another  to  do  it.  persuade  another  to  do  it. 

He  is  not  a  whit  better  than  those  He  is  not   in  any  degree  better 

whom  he  so  liberally  condemns.  than   those   whom   he    so   liberally 

condemns. 

He  stands  upon  security,  and  will  He  insists  upon  security,  and  will 

not  liberate  him  until  it  be  obtained,  not  liberate  him,  etc. 

The  meaning  of  the   phrase,  as  I  The  meaning  of  the  phrase,  as  I 

take  it,  is  very  different  from  the  understand  it,  is  very  different,  etc. 
common  acceptation. 

He  might  have  perceived  with  half  He   might  have   perceived  by  a 

an  eye  the  difficulties  to  which  his  transient  view  the  difficulties,  etc. 
conduct  exposed  him. 

This  performance  is  much  at  one  This  performance  is  of  the  same 

with  the  other.  value  as  the  other. 

Now,  in  every  one  of  these  examples,  the  amend- 
ment for  elegance'  sake  enfeebles  the  sentence.  There 
is  no  better  English  than  "  as  lief  "  or  "  a  whit,"  and 
as  to  "  stands  upon  security,"  it  means  exactly  what 
is  meant  by  "insists  upon  security,"  and  expresses  it 
more  tersely  and  graphically.  Falstaff's  tailor  was 
to  have  sent  him  two  and  twenty  yards  of  satin,  but 
the  fat  knight  says  that  he  and  the  rest  of  his  craft 
"stand  upon  security."  In  the  change  of  "I  take 
't"  to  "  I  understand  it,"  there  is  not,  as  to  the  mere 
words,  any  enfeebling  of  this  phrase  ;  but  "  I  take 
it"  corresponds  to  "  acceptation  "  much  better  than 


500  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

"  understand  "  does.  It  is  amusing  to  see  the  elegant 
critic  shrink  from  the  simple  English  "  I  take,"  and 
submit  without  a  murmur  to  the  Romance  "  accept." 
To  those  who  misapprehend  it,  the  phrase  "  half  an 
eye  "  may  carrjj^  an  unpleasant  or,  at  least,  a  gro- 
tesque suggestion  ;  but  at  the  worst  how  much  better 
it  is  than  such  weak  elegance  as  a  "  transient  view  "  ! 
*'  Half  an  eye,"  however,  docs  not  suppose  that  a 
person's  eye  is  to  be  cut  in  two,  and  that  he  is  to  see 
as  well  with  one  half  as  with  the  whole.  An  eye  ia 
a  glance,  a  look  ;  and  half  an  eye  is  merely  the  slight- 
est possible  glance.  "  Much  at  one "  is  not  only  a 
good  bit  of  idiomatic  English,  but  it  means  what 
"of  the  same  value  as  "  does  not  mean.  It  expresses 
sameness  or  close  correspondence  much  more  tersely 
than  the  substituted  phrase  does,  —  which,  indeed, 
does  not  expi-ess  that  thought  at  all ;  for  two  per- 
formances might  be  of  the  same  value,  and  yet  be 
quite  unlike. 

I  cite  tliese  few  instances  of  the  taste  of  half  a  cent- 
ury ago  as  examples  of  the  sort  of  elegance  wdiicli  it 
is  always  well  to  avoid.  In  general,  eschew  elegance ; 
and  if  you  are  not  a  practiced  writer  and  familiar 
with  the  best  literature  of  the  language,  whenever 
you  have  writen  anything  that  seems  to  you  particu- 
larly elegant,  for  that  very  reason,  if  you  cannot  omit 
the  substance  of  it,  rewrite  it  in  the  simplest  and 
homeliest  language  that  will  express  your  thought. 
Even  men  of  sense  and  culture  are  apt  to  be  misled 
into  absurdity  by  a  sounding  phrase.  Here  I  lind 
a  distinguished  clergyman  saying  of  another  dis- 
tinguished clergyman,  deceased,  "  II is  habits  were 
Vather  retired,  and  the  periphery  of  his  life  was  th« 


ELEGANT    ENGMSH.  501 

Circumference  of  his  affections."  I  cannot  but  think 
this  a  very  weak  and  inflated  way  of  saying,  or  trying 
to  say,  that  the  end  of  the  man's  life  was  love.  True, 
the  phrase  is  an  imitation  of  one  used  by  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  ;  but  Sir  Thomas  Browne  is,  like  Carlyle,  a 
writer  to  be  enjoyed,  but  not  to  be  imitated.  Horace 
Greeley,  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  career,  wrote  direct, 
vigorous  English ;  but  toward  the  end  of  his  life  he 
was  beguiled  by  vanity,  born  of  fame,  into  preten- 
tiousness and  elegance,  so  that  once  he  even  wrote, 
*'  whoever  chooses  to  impel  animals  along  a  road." 
Think  of  a  pig-driver  impelling  the  squealing  pork ! 

A  few  years  ago  there  was  a  great  outbreak  of  ele- 
gance in  the  use  of  mal.  Bad  conduct  was  called 
mal  conduct,  and  we  read  in  the  newspapers,  and  in 
the  resolutions  passed  at  public  meetings,  of  officers 
being  "  found  guilty  of  corrupt,  arbitrary,  and  mal 
conduct  in  ofl&ce."  It  was  used  with  an  air,  as  if  it 
meant  something  very  terrible  indeed,  and  as  if  the 
person  using  it  was  extinguishing  the  offender  by  a 
phrase  of  elegant  form  and  dreadful  import.  But  it 
was  merely  a  half-ignorant,  half-affected  imitation  of 
the  old  phrase,  "  malversation  in  office,"  which  is  al- 
most technical.  Those  who  used  it  only  made  them- 
selves ridiculous.  Luckily  they  suspected  this  after 
a  while,  and  the  phrase  soon  dropped  into  oblivion. 

The  very  last  instance  of  elegance  in  language  that 
I  have  heard  of  is  "  saloon-parlor."  I  first  heard  it 
—  not  used,  but  spoken  of — only  a  short  time  ago, 
and  I  did  not  suppose  that  any  other  person  had  ever 
"ised  it  but  a  pretentious  woman,  who  had  passed 
rapidly  not  only  from  poverty,  but  from  the  coarsest 
life,  to  uhe  enjoyment  of  wealth  and  such  elegance  as 
mere  wealth  can  bring,  and  who,  throwing  open  the 


502  EVERY-DAY   ENGLISH. 

door  of  a  great  gilded,  painted,  over-furnished  room 
in  a  new  house  which  she  was  showing  off  to  a  visitor, 
said,  with  a  flourish,  '•'  And  this  is  the  saloon-parlor." 
But  within  a  few  days  I  received  a  house-furnisher's 
advertisement,  in  which  the  necessary  articles  for  a 
•'  saloon-parlor  "  are  enumerated.  I  suppose  that  what 
is  meant  is  what  in  the  best  English  of  the  dav  is 
called  a  drawing-room.  This  new  name  is  worth  a 
passing  notice  because  of  its  illustration  of  the  pre- 
tentious vulgarity  into  which  the  aspiration  for  ele- 
gance is  apt  to  lead  too  many  aspirants.  "  Parlor," 
meaning  a  room  for  conversation,  is  a  good  word , 
"  drawing-room,"'  a  room  into  which  people  withdraw 
themselves  from  dinner,  is  not  quite  so  good,  but  still 
IS  good  enough  ;  but  "  saloon  "  is  a  pretentious  word, 
which,  although  it  was  in  common  use  in  England 
not  long  ago,  has  not  much  English  flavor,  and  the 
combination  of  it  with  "  parlor  "  makes  as  bad  and 
offensive  a  phrase  as  could  well  be  concocted. ^ 

What  I  have  said  on  this  subject  merely  gives 
warning,  by  illustration,  against  a  tendency  which  is 
likely  to  manifest  itself  in  those  who  deliberately  un- 
dertake to  make  their  English  elegant,  an  effort  al- 
most sure  to  end  in  disaster.  Better  make  slips  in 
grammar  or  in  spelling  now  and  then  than  affect  ele- 
gance of  language,  —  far  better  than  misuse  it  in  the 
way  in  which,  for  example,  "  predicate  "  and  "  trans- 
pire "  are  misused  so  often.  As  I  have  before  said, 
they  who  speak  the  best  English  are  they  who  take 
no  thought  as  to  their  speech,  either  as  to  the  words 

1  Since  writing  this  passage  I  have  learned  that  the  phrase  "  saloon- 
parlor  "  had  its  origin  in  the  building  trade,  and  that  they  who  use  it 
apply  it  to  a  drawing-room  that  is  made  by  throwing  what  used  to  b« 
front  and  back  parlor,  or  drawing-room  and  dining-room,  into  one  large 
Hiloon-like  apartment. 


ELEGANT   ENGLISH.  603 

they  use,  or  as  to  their  way  of  using  them.  The  mas- 
tery of  their  mother  tongue  has  come  to  them  from 
association,  from  social  and  intellectual  training,  and 
from  an  acquaintance  with  the  writings  of  the  best 
authors.  For  this  way  of  learning  to  speak  and  write 
English  well  there  is  no  substitute  ;  although  intelli- 
gent endeavor  may  do  somewhat  in  later  years  to  sup- 
ply the  lack  of  these  advantages  in  early  life.  Even 
then,  however,  the  same  end  must  be  obtained  by 
substantially  the  same  means.  You  may  learn  a  sci- 
ence by  dint  of  persevering  application  ;  you  cannot 
BO  learn  to  speak  and  write  your  mother  tongue.  If 
you  hear  poor  English  and  read  poor  English,  you 
will  pretty  surely  speak  poor  English  and  write  pool 
English. 


rNDEX. 


A,  6. 

a,  pronunciation  of,  10,  24,  167. 

a,  Irish  pronunciation  of,  82. 

above,  449. 

accident,  409. 

Adams,  Dr.,  325. 

Addison,  2M,  255,  340,  346,  347, 

357,  399. 
adverb,  position  of,  447. 
setris,  22. 

MUric,  Bishop,  231. 
afrreeable,  397. 
alchemy,  68. 
ales,  wines,  etc.,  490. 
Alexander,  Mrs.,  347. 
Alfred,  Kinf^,  231. 
Ali,'er's  "  English  Teacher,"  497. 
alms,  61,  81. 
altar,  245. 
analyse,  469. 
"  Ancren  Kiwle,"  353. 
angel,  9. 

"Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,"  231. 
anticipate,  413. 
"  Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  20. 
any,  13. 
aoi,  42 
aou,  9. 

"  Apology  for  Poetry,"  281. 
are,  12. 

"  Areopagitica,"  437. 
Aristophanes,  387. 
arms,  61. 
ascetic,  416. 
as  follow,  396. 
assist,  496. 

"  As  You  Like  It,"  442. 
at  fault,  447. 
at  one,  499. 
avocRtion,  403. 
awful,  3. 


b,  46,  47. 

Bailey,  253. 

Bain,  Dr.  Alexander,  267. 

Baker,  Eobert,  394. 

balance,  486. 

bankrupt,  247. 

banquet,  247. 

Bazaine,  Marshal,  377  . 

beard,  140. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  341,3541 

Bede,  231. 

been,  14,  225. 

behest.  497. 

Bell,  Melville,  25,  39,  180,  196. 

below,  449. 

Benton,  A.  E.,  451. 

Berners,  Lord,  242. 

bit,  414. 

Black,  William,  477. 

Bhikey,  Robert,  357. 

bosom,  30. 

both,  396. 

Boyd's  "  Leisure  Hours,"  432. 

Brachet,  41. 

brew,  35. 

Bright,  John,  211. 

Buckle,  Henry  William,  399,  4(5 

424. 
Buckle's    "History    of    Civiliza 

tion,"  479. 
buggle,  402. 
build,  73. 
Bullokar,  164. 

Bunyan,  John,  211,  252,  276 
Burbage,  Richard,  84. 
Burke,  Edmund,  357. 
Burthogge,  344,  356. 
business,  70. 
busy,  70. 

"  Busy  Body,"  240. 
Butler.  Charles.  19. 


506 


INDEX. 


Butler,  Samuel,  22,  232,  236. 

Buttman,  326. 

buy,  73. 

Byron,  Lord,  276. 

Casdmon,  354. 
caitiff,  383. 
calculate,  409. 
calf,  81. 
calm,  81. 
came,  396. 
can,  403. 
canalized,  459. 
"  Canterbury  Tales,"  64. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  28,  276. 
"  Case  is  Altered,"  65. 
"  Causa  Dei,"  344. 
Caxton,  William,  223. 
Centlivre,  Mrs.,  240. 
chair,  5. 

"  Chanson  de  Roland,"  42,  247. 
Chapman,  George,  32. 
Chatterton,  Thomas,  32,  33. 
Chaucer,  19,  231,351,  355. 
chay,  396. 
cliGGr  5 

Cheke,  Sir  John,  152,  157,  159. 
chemist,  68. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  169,  332. 
Child,  Professor,  293. 
chouse,  382. 

Churchyard,  Thomas,  242. 
Cicero,  158,  266. 
claim,  49. 

Clarendon,  Lord,  371. 
Clarendon's  "  History  of  the  Re- 
bellion," 479. 
claw,  396. 
clerk,  64,  69. 
closed  out,  488. 
collect,  489. 
college,  105. 
colonel,  232. 

colored  intelligence,  378. 
column,  35. 
command,  60. 

Commissioner  of  Customs,  453. 
vommon-sense,  273. 
conformable,  397. 
contemptuously,  396. 
contents  ncted,  492. 
Coote,  200. 
corp,  396. 


Corson,  Professor,  154, 
could,  30. 
couple,  406. 
couvrechief,  426. 
covered  into,  486. 
Cowley,  Abraham,  356. 
Cowper,  435. 
criterion,  449. 
cruel  (verb),  297. 
cum  grano  salis,  447. 
currying  favor,  498. 
"  Cursor  Mundi,"  353, 

c?,  46. 

dancing  attendance,  498. 

danger,  9. 

dare,  397. 

Darwin,  49. 

dative  case,  287. 

dative  (Latin),  434. 

daughter,  170. 

dAut,  448. 

Defoe,  404. 

Dekker,  Thomas,  234,  248 

Delhi,  63,  100. 

demean,  396. 

Derby,  63. 

Deslnosses,  101. 

devotee,  444. 

Dickens,  Charles,  98,  264. 

"  Dictes  and  Sayings,"  etc.,  404 

different  than,  398. 

different  to,  397. 

differ  from,  450. 

differ  with,  450. 

Digby,  Kenelm,  343. 

dilemma,  447. 

Dionysius  Thrax,  324. 

directly,  412. 

disgust,  55. 

dishonest,  55. 

dit,  148. 

does,  30. 

dog,  26. 

donate,  402. 

door,  61. 

Doran,  Dr..  21. 

down,  449. 

dramatis  personce,  388. 

drawing-room,  502. 

duke,  33. 

Du  Mauricr,  309. 

dut'^,  34. 


INDEX. 


507 


B  final,  256,  257. 

e,  pronunciation  of,  12. 

e,  superfluous  terminal,  256. 

ea,  pronunciation  of,  22. 

earn  for  erne,  257. 

earth,  66. 

eau,  41. 

"  Educational  Monthly,"  429. 

ei,  pronunciation  of,  22. 

ei,  Irish  pronunciation  of,  82. 

either,  179,396. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  279. 

Elizabethan  Era,  Memorandums 
of  English  Pronunciation  in, 
20. 

Ellis,  Alexander,  37, 137, 138, 171, 
196,  391. 

Ellis,  Clement,  19. 

England,  230. 

English  Pronunciation,  Memoran- 
dums of,  38,  83,  244. 

"  English  Schoolmaster,"  200. 

employee,  443. 

endemic,  464. 

en  passant,  397. 

epidemic,  464. 

er  (suffix),  469. 

erewhile,  497. 

err,  67. 

esprit,  472. 

Etherege,  19,  339. 

eunditm  est  mihi,  434. 

Euphuists,  497. 

event,  461. 

eventuality,  459. 

€ventuel,  460. 

Everett,  Edward,  120. 

every  once  in  a  while,  410. 

evolute,  455. 

ex,  pronunciation  of,  56. 

execute,  424. 

extra,  373. 

extraordinary,  26. 

falcon,  245. 
Farquhar,  238. 
fast,  375. 

'  Fatal  Dowry,"  371. 
"  Father  Hubburd's  Tale,"  227. 
fault,  245. 
feel  bad,  480. 
feel  ladly,  480. 
fell,  396. 


female,  390. 

tire,  408. 

foot,  30. 

♦'  Fopling  Flutter,  Sir,"  19,  339, 

Ford,  John,  442. 

Freeman,  Edward,  461. 

Frith,  John,  402. 

fruit,  35. 

full,  27,  30. 

Furness,  Mrs.,  349. 

g,  51. 

■"  Galatea,  Cruise  of,"  406,  408. 

Gardiner,  Bishop,  152. 

Gar  rick,  67. 

Gascoigne,  191. 

Gataker,  126. 

"  Gentile  Sinner,"  19. 

gentleman,  363. 

"  Gentleman  of  Venice,"  442. 

geologer,  469. 

(jh,  pronunciation  of,  144. 

Gibson,  Thomas,  245. 

"  Gil  Bias,"  448. 

Gilchrist,  342. 

Gill,  Alexander,  164. 

girl,  53. 

Gladstone,  Dr.,  209. 

"Glosik,"215, 

god,  26. 

gold,  34. 

good,  30. 

Gorges,  Sir  Arthur,  18. 

"  Government  of    the   Tongue, 

440. 
governments,  492. 
governor,  254. 
Gower,  John,  242. 
grammar  schools,  276. 
grant,  60. 
grantee,  444. 
grass,  60. 

Gray,  Thomas,  338,  340,342,346 
great,  109. 
Grimm,  Jacob,  355. 
guard,  53. 
guild,  70. 
Guildhall,  70. 
guilt,  70. 

had,  434. 

had  n't  oughter,  427. 

had  rather,  427. 


508 


INDEX. 


Haldeman.  Professor  S.  S.,  197 

Ihilc,  Sir  JMattliew,  252,  257. 

half,  81. 

half  an  eye,  499. 

h.ilf  and,  93. 

half  aud  half,  9.3. 

"  Half  Peimvworth  of  Wit,"  227. 

"  Hamlet,"  19,  84,  408. 

hard,  61. 

Hart,  John,  160. 

Hatton,  Sir  Christopher,  350. 

have,  434. 

"  Havelok,"  353. 

Ha/Jitt,  William,  452. 

hearth,  66,  69. 

Hebrew,  384. 

hector,  353. 

Helps,  Arthur,  340,  342,  346,347. 

Henry  III.,  231. 

her,  396. 

"  Hero  Carthew,"  1 5. 

herod,  383. 

Heywood,  Thomas,  20,  371. 

"  High  Life  below  Stairs,"  450. 

him,  396. 

"  hire  a  hall,"  484. 

"  History  of  Civilization,"  424. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  34.i. 

ho<j,  27. 

Holland,  Sir  H.,  375. 

holpeu,  446. 

home,  30. 

"  Honest  Whore,"  442. 

"  llonoria  and  Mammon,"  442. 

"  Hudibras,"  236. 

Hume,  David,  342. 

hurly-burly,  498. 

Huxley,  49. 

i',  pronunciation  of,  14    19,  21 

I  'd,  428. 

identical,  498. 

ie,  terminal,  256,  257 

I  gone,  271. 

I  is,  270. 

rid.  428. 

impel,  500. 

in,  412. 

index,  21,  449. 

individual,  389. 

\  never  did!  16. 

m  fault,  447. 

aiyenuity,  396. 


mterpretrd,  493. 

into,  412. 

invest,  490. 

irks,  498. 

iron,  82. 

"  I  savs,  says  I,"  3!)7. 

isvi  (suttix)',  469. 

ist  (suffix),  469. 

ize  (suffix),  469. 

Jesuitical,  383. 

Johnson,  Dr.,  36,  1 69,  230,  235. 

Jones,  J.  M.  D.,  239. 

Jonson,  Ben,  65,  277,  341,  350. 

jusjurandum,  454. 

juxtapose,  457. 

Kemble,  John  Philip,  443. 

kennel,  462. 

kerchief,  426. 

ketch,  13. 

kind,  53. 

King,  Humphrey,  227. 

lady,  363,  370. 

Landor,  Walter  Savage,  346, 357 

Latham,  Dr.,  255. 

Latimer,  Bishop,  245. 

laughter,  170. 

law,  25. 

Layamon,  354. 

"Layamon's  Brut,"  231. 

leech,  471. 

leechcraft,  471. 

Leicester,  Earl  of  234 

leisure,  13. 

lie,  396. 

lief,  499. 

lieutenant,  242. 

Lilly,  William,  266. 

line,  488. 

Ik,  final,  pronunciation  of,  81. 

Llovd,  241. 

Locke,  John,  105. 

lord,  61. 

lorn,  61. 

Lounsbury,  Professor,  19,  206. 

"Love  in  a  Maze,"  371. 

"  Lover's  Melancholy,"  442. 

"  Love's  Labor's  Lost,"  6,  248 

Lowe,  Kohert,  115,  209 

Lowth,  Bishop.  348. 

Lydgate,  24.'). 


INDEX. 


509 


«,  nrst  consonant,  45. 
Macaulaj,  Thomas  B.,  120,  255, 

276. 
"Macbeth,"  5. 
Madvig,  Professor,  267. 
Maetzuer,  Professor,  267. 
make  way,  410. 
mal,  500. 
mamma,  40. 
man,  390. 

Mandeville,  Sir  John,  352. 
manoeuvre,  455. 
many,  13. 

March,  Prof.  F.  A.,  123. 
"  Mariage  Force,"  366. 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  210. 
"  Marmion,"  438. 
Marshall,  George,  164. 
"  Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  98. 
Massiiiger,  Thomas,  237,  371 
may,  403. 

nib,  pronunciation  of,  71. 
me,  396. 

tiKa  doniina,  147. 
medicine,  470. 
Melmoth,  398. 
memoranda,  415. 
memorandum,  21,  449. 
merchant,  64. 
"Mery  Talys,  A  C,"  18. 
"  Michaelmas  Term,"  247. 
Middleton,  Thomas,  227,  237,  247, 

442. 
Milton,  John,  18,  236,  437. 
"  Mirror  for  Magistrates,"  18. 
miscreant,  383. 
mob,  485. 
Moliere,  365. 
morale,  472. 
Mordecai,  354. 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  351. 
Morris,  Dr.,  267,  312. 
mortgagee,  444. 
Midler,  Prof.  Max,  183. 
mutual,  396. 

naked,  13. 
near,  415. 

neck-handkerchief,  425. 
neither,  396. 
neoteri-sm,  304. 
nephew,  74. 
lew,  .54. 


Newman,  Professor,  58,  249. 

next,  415. 

Nichols,  338. 

nominee,  444. 

none,  27,  29. 

not,  26. 

Nott,  Dr.,  210. 

number,  493. 

o,  pronunciation  of,  27. 

of  age,  411. 

old,  411. 

00,  pronunciation  of,  81. 

organer,  469. 

origin  of  language,  44. 

Ormin,  152. 

"Ormulum,"  156,231,354, 

our  Mr.,  493. 

our  special,  493. 

p,  46. 

palm,  81. 

Palmer,  Samuel,  344,  357. 

paralyse,  469. 

Parliament,  70. 

parlor,  502. 

Parr,  Louisa,  15. 

Parsons,  Governor,  432. 

part,  414. 

particle,  413. 

"Paston  Letters,"  18,  22a 

patentee,  444. 

payee,  444. 

pear,  140. 

Pecock,  351. 

people,  22. 

perilous,  64. 

Perry's  Dictionary,  57. 

person,  64,  386. 

personality,   476. 

personalty,  476. 

Pharaohs,  384. 

"  Pharsalia,"  20. 

Phelp,  Rev.  P.  U.,  17. 

Philip  II.,  422. 

Phillip.s,  Wendell,  431,  442. 

Phonetic  al])habet,  188. 

physician,  470. 

physicist,  470. 

physics,  470. 

"Piers  the  Plowman,"  352. 

pique,  21. 

Pitman  (phonetic),  187,  208. 


510 


INDEX. 


"  Pizarro,"  113. 

plague,  13. 

plciUie  find  inclosed,  492. 

])Ocket-h;indkerchief,  425. 

}>olitical,  472. 

l)oliti(jue,  472. 

\ionere,  457. 

Tope,  Alexander,  145,  254. 

po|mlace,  371. 

popular,  363. 

pore,  61. 

pork,  61. 

\toser,  457. 

prssessive  case,  288. 

poultryist,  471. 

predicate,  391. 

pretty  middlin',  17. 

"  Princess  of  Thule,"  477. 

"  Promptorum  Parvulorum,"  343. 

proper  names,  pronunciation   of, 

62. 
propose,  396. 
psidter,  245. 
pure,  33. 
Puttenhara,  394. 

quote,  247. 
quoth  he,  497. 

r,  47. 

r,  Irish  pronunciation  of,  82. 

Raleigh,  Sir  W.,  279,  341. 

Ralph,  247. 

rascality,  476. 

rascalry,  476. 

realiiy,  476. 

realm,  245. 

realty,  476. 

receipt,  70. 

recollect,  414. 

referee,  444. 

remember,  414. 

rendered,  493. 

respuhlica,  454. 

restaurant,  361. 

resurrect,  402. 

resurrectionize,  402. 

resusc  itated  dreadful,  496. 

revelate,  402. 

rlieum,  35. 

right  off  the  reel,  16. 

Robert  of  Brunne,  353. 

Robert  of  Gloucester,  231,  353. 


Roby's  Grammar,  267. 

Rochester,  126. 

"  Roman  de  la  Rose,"  426. 

romanesque,  378. 

"  Romaaut  of  the  Rose/'  19. 

Rome,  34. 

rood,  30. 

roof,  30. 

root,  30. 

Rowley  Poems,  32. 

"  Royal  King,"  etc.,  20,  371. 

rules  high,  487. 

Ruskin,  John,  416. 

Ruthwell  Runes,  354,  355. 

safe,  397. 
sagesse,  472. 
saloon-parlor,  500. 
'  Saturday  Review,"  452. 
savage,  245. 
saw,  225. 

Sayce,  Rev.  A.  H.,  210. 
scandalous,  3. 
schedule,  69. 
schism,  69. 
scissors,  69. 

Scott,  Sir  "Walter,  276,  438. 
seat,  169. 

second  person  singular,  445. 
self -same,  497. 
sergeant,  64. 
servant,  64,  69. 
set,  396. 
sewer,  126. 

Shakespeare,  5,  84,  344,  442,  .143. 
shares,  3. 

Shaw,  Samuel,  356. 
Shawaugunk,  100. 
she  (noun),  97. 
shear,  4. 
sheers,  3. 
shell,  148. 
Shenstone,   340,    342,    343,    346, 

357. 
Sheridan,  228,  387. 
''  She  Would  if  she  Could,"  339. 
shift,  498. 
shire,  4. 
shire  town,  23. 
Shirley,    James,    126,    371,  408, 

442. 
"  Shoe-maker's  Holiday,"  234. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  243,  279,  343 


INDEX. 


511 


Silent  letters  in  seventeenth  cent- 
ury, 248. 
Bin,  27. 

"  Sir  Harry  Wildair,"  238. 
Skeat,  Kev.  Walter,  234. 
Slingsbv,  Sir  Henry,  244. 
Smart,  B.  H.,  17,197. 
Smith,  Sydney,  357. 
Smith,  Sir  Thomas,  160. 
snake,  13. 
pole,  81. 
soil,  343. 

somebody's  else,  454. 
Sophocles,  387. 
soul,  81. 

Southey,  Kobert,  276,  402. 
speak,  407. 
spe'a<tUt€,  475. 
speciality,  475. 
specialty,  475. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  235. 
spirituality,  476. 
spiritualty,  476. 
stands  upon,  499. 
Steele,  254,  346,  356. 
Sterne,  Laurence,  446. 
stew,  34. 
St.  John,  346. 
stone,  29. 

Stormonth's  Dictionary,  passim. 
Strype,  157. 
suicide,  411. 
suitable,  397. 
Sweet,  Henry,  197. 
Swift,  Dean,  342,  345,  347,  356. 
Sylvester,  400. 

t,  46. 

t  for  ed,  256. 

"Table  Traits,"  21. 

Tacitus,  347. 

take  it,  499. 

talk,  407. 

tandem,  485. 

task,  60. 

technique,  493. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  110. 

Terence,  387. 

Torre  Haute,  100. 

tit.  54. 

Tliackeray,  William  M.,  271,  376, 

407. 
the,  41 1 


their,  416. 

thou  lovest,  446. 

thous,  445. 

Tivoli,  63. 

to  have,  397. 

topsy-turvy,  498. 

trait,  21. 

transpire,  391. 

Trench,  Archbishop,  431,  442. 

Trevisa,  232. 

"  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  442,  476 

Trollope,  Anthony,  407,  412. 

Trumbull,  178. 

tmstee,  444. 

truths,  54. 

tuppence,  63. 

"  Twelfth  Night,"  442. 

Tyndale,  .344,  351,  352. 

Tyndall,  49. 

u,  pronunciation  of,  29,  33. 
«,  Yankee,  36. 
unaccented  vowels,  78. 
unique,  375. 
unto,  33. 

Unwin,  Mrs.,  348. 
up,  449. 

Van  Schaik,  101. 

vase,  26. 

vault,  345. 

"  View  of  the   Present  State  ol 

Ireland,"  235. 
virtue,  66. 

"  Visible  Speech,"  25. 
vocation,  404. 
volvere,  456. 

"walk  and  conversation,"  485. 
Walker,  John,  6,  10,  56,  57,  68 

166. 
Waller's  "  Vindication,"  479. 
Wallis,  John,  16,  23. 
Walter,  247. 

Walton,  Isaak,  252,  256. 
Warburton,  Bishop,  342. 
Warter,  J.  Wood,  345. 
Warwick,  63,  100. 
Webster's  Dictionary,  passim. 
were,  144. 

"Westward  Ho,"  140. 
Weymouth,  Richard  Francis,  200 
wh,  promiuciatii)n  of,  61. 


512 


INDEX. 


whereons  (noun),  297. 

wliit,  499. 

Wliite,  Gilhert,  342,  345. 

Whitney,  Professor,  7,  266,  311, 

and  passim. 
whole,  28,  30. 
wliolly,  62. 
whom,  396. 

"  Whore  of  Babylon,  The,"  246. 
Wickliffe,  62. 
"  W'tlow's  Tears,"  32. 
WilKins,  Dean,  25,  162. 
wind  (horn),  32. 
Winnipiseooee,  100. 
wist  not,  497. 
Wither,  George,  349. 
woman,  390. 


womeji,  73. 

"  Wonders  of  England,"  64. 

Worcester,  100. 

W'orcester's  Dictionary,  passim. 

Wordsworth,  William,  276. 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  342. 

wound,  31. 

Wraxall,  342. 

yacht,  69. 

yes  'm,  147. 

"Young  Admiral,"  479. 

Young,  Sir  Charles,  169. 

youths,  54. 

you  was,  444. 


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